** IMPORTANT UPDATE: New dates for Splendour In The Grass 2020 have been announced. Event now to be held on Friday 23, Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October 2020 at North Byron Parklands. See announcement release below or head to Splendour In The Grass website for further information. New tickets may become available to those on waitlist so be sure to add your name if it’s not already on the list . Midnight Oil have confirmed their attendance via Twitter and will be playing on Friday 23 October **
Splendour In The Grass has just announced their 2020 line-up. The three-day music festival, is being held on 24, 25 & 26 July 2020 and is set to be a super celebration as it’s their 20th anniversary event. Organisers have managed to secure some big names in music right now including Flume & The Strokes, but one that will have all AMMP readers ears twitching is the inclusion of Midnight Oil who will be both classic songs along with new tracks from their new mini-album The Makarrata Project on the first day of the festival, Friday 24 July 2020. Tickets go on sale 9am, Thursday 27 February 2020 https://splendourinthegrass.com/tickets/
The Makarrata Project which was recorded in the second half of 2019 will be the first new music recorded by Midnight Oil in almost two decades, and is set to be released in June/July 2020.
In a statement on the Midnight Oil website they band explains the inspiration behind The Makarrata Project “We had over 20 songs we wanted to record and eight of them shared a strong focus on the issue of indigenous reconciliation, so we invited some of our First Nations friends to collaborate with us in various ways on each of these eight tracks. Our collective work will be released as a mini-album called The Makarrata Project in June/July. Band profits from this release will be donated to charities which elevate The Uluru Statement From The Heart (ulurustatement.org/the-statement). This mid-year release of The Makarrata Project will be accompanied by a small handful of themed live performances in Australia featuring some of the very special guests who helped create this mini-album.”
And the band isn’t stopping there. Midnight Oil are revered for their speaking their minds on environmental and political issues, with their songs totally in tune to the frustration felt by so many in Australia about the state of the country, so it’s uplifting to see that they are also working on a new album which will address climate chaos and Australia’s mega fires of 2019-2020. This will be released later in the year, along with Australian and international tours throughout late 2020 and early 2021.
