After taking the last year off, the reformed Midnight Oil will head back out on the road in 2019, announcing Monday a run of 11 dates in the U.K., Ireland and Europe next summer along with a July festival appearance in the band’s native Australia.
In a post on the Oils’ website, the band says “we’ll be doing a few gigs next year,” largely “in cities we weren’t able to visit the last time around” during the band’s mammoth Great Circle Tour in 2017. The group suggests there may be more shows announced in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but makes no reference to the U.S. — whether to promise dates here, or rule them out.
The band writes:
“We really enjoyed making music together again on The Great Circle tour and the reaction from everyone was so positive that we’ve decided to do a bit more of it in 2019. There won’t be anywhere near as many shows as in 2017, but we’re keen to keep performing while there are still new places to play and new things to say. It’s as simple as that really.”
Pre-sales begin at 10 a.m. GMT Wednesday for the UK and Ireland shows and 10 a.m. CET for the European shows; visit midnightoil.com/pre-sale for ticketing links, passwords and more.
Midnight Oil — which last month released a live album recorded at the finale of its 2017 tour — also warns fans not to believe any rumors of other tour dates: “We genuinely haven’t made any firm plans beyond these June/July dates.”
See the band’s dates below:
Midnight Oil tour dates
UK & EUROPE
June 9: O2 Apollo, Manchester, England
June 11: Olympia, Dublin, Ireland
June 13: O2 Brixton Academy, London, England
June 17: Stadtpark, Hamburg, Germany
June 19: Porta Nigra, Trier, Germany
June 21: Zeltfestival, Mannheim, Germany
June 27: Grand Rex, Paris, France
July 1: Tollwood Festival, Munich, Germany
July 3: Killesberg, Stuttgart, Germany
July 6: Zitadelle, Mainz, Germany
July 13: Amphitheatre, Gelsenkirchen, Germany
AUSTRALIA
July 18: Big Red Bash, Birdsville, Queensland
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS:
- Midnight Oil to return to the U.S. in August for ‘final four’ additional concerts
- Midnight Oil details huge new 12-disc box set: Demos, rarities, B-sides, hours of live video
- Midnight Oil digs deep with 29-song set to open ‘Great Circle’ reunion tour — video
- Midnight Oil plays surprise warm-up gig in Sydney ahead of reunion tour — setlist, video
- Midnight Oil announces massive 2017 reunion tour, 3 huge box sets with unreleased music
IMHO one of the greatest live bands that ever took to a stage. Saw one of their long awaited reunion shows last year…they’ve still got it….they were absolutely phenomenal! The recently released Blu ray/DVD captured the show beautifully.
New studio album?
When the reunion was first announced in 2017, drummer/songwriter Rob Hirst said he wasn’t interested in coming back just for the nostalgia circuit and that he was really keen for the band to record new material. The fact that they’ve seemingly left plenty of room in the 2019 schedule to do so gives me hope. My feeling is that a new album is probably on the way next year.