Customer Reviews

Scream in Blue - Live

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Midnight Oil's only proper live album was recorded at the height of their international fame. A band ignored by oscurity and then by a grunge obsessed America and Europe, Midnight Oil had deserved a far great fame. Legendary in their homeland of Australia, these crusaders of right and wrong knew how to string together heart pounding rock.

And that's what you get on this live recording, great, in your face rock from Down Under.

Not to say that this live album isn't enough, but for someone who never had the fortune of seeing them, even after a visit to Sydney 2000, I feel anyone who want to experience atleast some of the bands live splendour, needs to dig down their pockets and treat themselves to a live DVD as well. Seeing Pete working the stage is such a integral part of the whole Midnight Oil experience.

What we have here: a well-recorded overview of 1980-90, drawn from several tours. Also an uncredited acoustic remake of "Burnie" on the end, which is the album's highlight. Best customer: someone who wanted a live overview of the band, especially what in 1992 was their most recent music.

What we don't have: a sense of what any of those tours were like at the time. We lose Peter Garrett's acerbic between-song observations, and also any sense of continuity or buildup from one song to the next. The greatest emphasis is on their least varied tour with -- strangely -- a couple songs included that the buyer wasn't likely to ever hear in concert again.

Live albums aren't meant to be perfect; they're meant to represent the actual performing energy of the artist(s) involved, meanwhile cadging more money from the fans for songs they've already heard. To this end, a one-disc reduction of a 1990 show (say, Wembley) would have been a better choice: an actual event, well-recorded and squarely representing the band at the time.

SCREAM IN BLUE is not a bad album; it just suffers from trying to do too much in too little a space. Better yet would be releasing the shows from which these songs were drawn (and one has, in video form, on BEST OF BOTH WORLDS). Until then, here are a dozen well-recorded songs, all well worth hearing.