Missing Aussie rock legends Midnight Oil? We hardly blame you (so are we) and it seems even the members of the band are pining for a reunion.

Drummer and co-founder Rob Hirst has sparked speculation of a Midnight Oil reunion tour while promoting the release of new concert DVD and an accompanying Sydney exhibition dedicated to the band.

Hirst says that he and his bandmates are encouraging the prospect of a comeback, but the decision ultimately rests with frontman turned politician Peter Garrett, who’s currently in the middle of writing a retrospective.

“Peter’s writing his memoirs at the moment so that might take a while, but I think everyone’s up for it,” Hirst told FasterLoudersaying the band are “up for” a tour. “Hopefully it won’t be so long that we won’t be able to put on the sort of show that we’d like to put on.”

The drummer, who currently plays with fellow Oils members Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey in supergroup The Break, similarly tells The Musicthat he was “excited and terrified at the same time” about the prospect of getting the much-loved group back together, should it happen.

Hirst’s optimism is in direct contrast to former Midnight Oil manager and unofficial sixth member, Gary Morris, who resigned from his post this time last year in a gesture that quashed circulating rumours of a band reunion. “Knowing where everyone’s heads are at, I can’t see it happening,” Morris remarked at the time.

[include_post id=”398612″]

Morris stepped relinquished his role of more than 40 years following reports that the iconic Aussie band were receiving offers of up to $200,000 per show from festival bookers in the US and Australia for a comeback tour, timed after Peter Garrett announced his retirement from politics.

While reunion speculation is up in the air, Sony will release Black Rain Fallscapturing the band’s 1990 guerrilla concert outside Exxon Oil headquarters in protest of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, digitally and on DVD on Friday 20th June. “Peter’s writing his memoirs at the moment so that might take a while, but I think everyone’s up for it.”

The DVD release coincides with the opening of a Midnight Oil exhibition hosted at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum on the same day. Running until September, the exhibition will gather rare memorabilia such as hand written lyrics, instruments, stage props, protest banners, photographs and “posters dating back to when the band was first called Farm,” Hirst tells The Music.

Raiding the band archives, the drummer says the showcase will have “an amazing amount of stage clobber and footage that Bonesy [bassist Bones Hillman] shot of the band backstage that has never been shown,” as well as new documentary about the making of the band’s landmark 1982 album 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Midnight Oil originally split in 2002 for Garrett to enter the political realm; there have been a handful of one-off reunions from the band since then. Namely, at 2005’s WaveAid benefit concert, 2009’s Sound Relief show, and the 2013 Rock For Doc Neeson benefit concert, where Peter Garrett made a surprise appearance, joining Moginie and Hirst on-stage at the star-studded charity gig in support of The Angels singer who was diagnosed with a brain tumour in January.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine