Midnight Oil still burning

Politically-charged Australian rockers Midnight Oil have always embraced the notion that ‘‘it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees’’ and have now announced New Zealand dates as part of their final concert tour.

Their new album and tour is titled Resist. The New Zealand leg will launch in Christchurch, before heading to Wellington’s TSB Arena on May 10 and Auckland on May 13.

In announcing their final concert tour, Midnight Oil wants to stress this is not the end of the band. Each of the members will continue their own projects. They remain open to recording new music together in future and supporting causes they believe, but this will be their last tour.

In the four decades since Midnight Oil exploded out of the post-punk scene from Australia’s pub circuit in 1978, the band has created several hits, notably Beds Are Burning, which is one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock’n’roll according to the United States Rock’n’roll Hall of Fame.

After returning from a long hiatus in 2017, Midnight Oil sold out 77 shows in 16 countries on their Great Circle tour, performing in New Zealand for the first time in 27 years.

Following a European tour and an acclaimed gig in the outback, they returned to the studio for the first time in 18 years and recorded 20 new songs.

The first songs from that session formed The Makarrata Project, which debuted at No 1 in Australia on the same weekend last year that long-time bass player Bones Hillman sadly died.

Resist includes 12 new songs recorded with Bones. For the arena shows the band will perform classics from their back catalogue alongside ‘‘urgent new works’’ like lead single Rising Seas, which tackles the climate crisis.

The band’s back catalogue boasts a string of classic tracks including Blue Sky Mine, I Don’t Wanna Be The One, Power & The Passion, Say Your Prayers, US Forces and the 2020 APRA song of the year Gadigal Land.

Key songwriter and guitarist Jim Moginie said the band didn’t want to take the risk of compromising their history.

‘‘We’ve played intensely physical gigs since our humble beginnings back in 1977, and we never want to take even the slightest risk of compromising that. A lot has happened over the last five years.’’

Midnight Oil’s international tour dates will be held subject to Covid19 restrictions.

Pre-sale tickets go on sale via midnightoil.com for 25 hours from: 10am Tuesday, November 30, or until pre-sale allocation exhausted. General tickets available from noon Thursday, December 2 at Ticketek for the Christchurch show and Ticketmaster for Wellington and Auckland.