Midnight Oil announces massive 2017 reunion tour, 3 huge box sets with unreleased music

Has anyone measured the new CDs with the TT DR meter? The 2014s were the most recent on the database last I checked. I might be interested in the new boxes if the mastering is better than the 2014s.

 

Amazon just raised the price overnight on the Full Tank, from $200 to $225. I was about to order from them, but now I have to reassess.

 

Long time Oils fan here.
In excitement, back when the news was first announced months ago, I pre-ordered all three box sets.
I received them all just over two weeks ago and I can tell you I am quite disappointed with all of them.
First of all, the vinyl box. The artwork has been bastardised - it's mostly terrible. There's slight zooming in on original artwork and poor poor copies - pixelated and horrible. This is the box where everything should all be perfect. "Head Injuries" was released in 1979 and yet this "new" respresentation is quite horrible - the front is terrible and the rear is a complete joke - the inner sleeve is so zoomed in that it cuts out too much of the original (the promo posters splattered everywhere). This is 2017! How can they not make perfect copies of the original artwork? Especially when the advertising blurb read "artwork has been painstakingly restored to match the original releases". Poor form. And, what I really I really don't like compared to the originals, is there are no track listings on each side of each LP (you know, on the label in the middle)!
Both CD box sets have their CD sleeves and booklet packed in so tightly that it's so difficult to get them out and near impossible to get them back in!
The "Full Tank" has minimal individual packaging (front and rear artwork for each album and the DVD) but no other "original sleeves" or lyrics! Again the advertising mentioned "its artwork has been restored to match the original releases". Wrong again (often zoomed in/cropped). If there was just a lyric booklet, that may have been okay, with some of the inner sleeve artwork thrown in. For example there was a lot of lovely inner sleeve artwork on the original "Earth And Sun And Moon" CD release.
The "Overflow Tank" is what it is - a new(ish) release. Unfortunately most of it has been released before, so that makes it not really that special.
Honestly the CD box sets are really overpriced, for what you get.
I have emailed the original retailer about my complaints and eventually heard back them. They said that they had forwarded my email onto Midnight Oil management. But I've not heard from them (no reaction, I haven't heard a word!). I also emailed Sony Music but have had no reply from them either!
I believe there's been a bit of misrepresentaion altogether and am thinking about asking for a refund (I can under Australian Consumer Law).
I had a lot of expectation about this all, but feel quite let down.
Grumpy old Oils fan.

 

Your post is exactly the reason I refused to order the boxes. Not much new for over $200+ $300 in Australia, what a joke. I saw Midnight Oil many times in concert, own everything they produced but won't be fooled into this disaster.

 

By ordering from ImportCDs and selling off a few unwanted LPs, I've managed to reduce my out of pocket expense for the Full Tank down from the original list of $250 to just 66 bucks! At that price, I can live with the reported flaws. I plan on taking the same approach with the Overflow Tank as soon as possible.

 

Good to hear some feedback on the packaging, but what about the sound?

 

Great show at the Fox Theatre in Oakland last night. They know how to bring it over live. Peter Garrett is one of the best white guy spaz dancers ever, especially during "The Power & The Passion," or whatever the name of that song is. He sort of interprets every song, and some guitar solos, with his movements, and totally gets away with it. He's a great frontman. Really good vocal harmonies from the drummer and bass player. Good song list; they closed the show with "King of the Mountain," which may be my favorite song. Also they did an acoustic mini-set that was cool.

They covered the Grateful Dead's "Wharf Rat," which they did a rendition of on the tribute compilation, Deadicated. Peter introduced the song saying they had originally chose the Dead's "Ship of Fools," but Elvis Costello chose it first. Unfortunately, I think the cover was lost on much of the audience, the vast majority of whom, unlike me, did not seem to be Deadheads. In Oakland! There ought to be a law....

Anyway, for a show I wasn't super psyched for, it turned out to be great.

 

I saw a great show in Denver, but the setlist in Portland last night looks like my dream setlist. Apparently the venue was an 800 seater. Wish I could have been there.

The three openers? Redneck Wonderland, Best of Both Worlds and Armistice Day.

Midnight Oil Setlist at Revolution Hall, Portland

 

I've seen lotsa complaints about brickwalling.

 

I bought the whole shebang and I think the CDs sounds fine. But I bought the CDs for car and mobile listening and the vinyl for more critical listening. I've only given a quick listen to most of the vinyl and I think it mostly sounds great. For some albums though, I preferred the CD version, such as Place Without A Postcard. For most people on this forum I think you'll like the vinyl versions the best, but for most other folks the CDs will be just fine or preferred. The artwork, on the other hand, was not handled as well as it should have been. For the vinyl album covers the artwork ranges from fine to a bit embarrassing on 3 or 4 of them.

While I'm at it, I absolutely loved the content of the Overflow tank. Some of the more serious Oils collectors had a lot of the stuff, but for me a lot of it was new. I've still got a couple of the DVDs left to watch but I love what I've seen.

 

Still waiting for them to haul out Powderworks. Maybe they're saving it for the Australian leg?

 

I think that's about as good a setlist as one could hope for in North America. I'd much rather see them in Australia, though, where I'd expect them to trot out more of their early stuff.

 

Great set list. Good to see "Stand In Line" back in and more pre-10...1 material. Still, doesn't beat the full performance of the 10...1 album we had here in Chicago--yes, I'm gloating--but I would love to have had more of the early material. This is a band that still cares about their audience and is still challenging themselves. For that we should all be grateful.

 

Do we have any objective data, yet? Such as:

 

I thought it was pretty clear from the original press release that the CDs in the new sets were the 2014 remasters. What else could "remastered over recent years" mean?

EDIT: Then again, the press release also said the artwork had been painstakingly restored, which is not the case. So yes, it would be good to see some waveforms or something.

 

Yes and yes. The Portland set list was the best of the west coast, so far. Though I think Chicago got the golden egg with the Oils playing all of 10-1. That would do me as a consolation prize.

 

Yes, you guys got the best concert so far.
The one I attended in L.A. Was very heavy on the campfire trilogy ( D&D, BSM, E&S&M ). They were still really amazing live, but when they did Only the Strong or Read about it they went up another notch.

 

All I can say is that the Denver show was amazing.

 

Seems like everything about the box sets was done half a$$ed, which is not something I'd expect from this band. A lot of people (me included) are having their sets disappear
in transit (according to the Oil's fans FB page). Too much of a coincidence for it to be the postal service's fault. It seems like something the company that is shipping them (24Hundred)
is doing must be causing the problems. Several people have had theirs returned without delivery. Mine was shipped from Melbourne to New York to Los Angeles, and has been
in transit from Los Angeles to my neighborhood post office (a 17 mile journey) for four days. I know that sounds more like a postal service issue, but the fact that others are having
similar issues makes it appear to be something the shipper is or isn't doing is causing it. Guess I should have just gone with Amazon like I usually do.

 

Just read today where several people have received the box sets with duplicate copies of one of the DVDs and another one missing.
What a mess.

 

You scared the hell out of me (I haven't really dived into the Tank yet), so I just grabbed mine to double check all the discs. Fortunately, everything's fine on mine.

 

Sorry about that. I just ordered the Overflow Tank from Amazon since it is at $177 again. I honestly don't expect my Tank Pack combo to show up at this point, and from what I've heard the Full Tank isn't worth it (for someone like me
who already has the original and the remastered CDs). Not sure what I was thinking when ordering. Just hope I can get my money back.

 

No - I appreciate the heads-up. I'd rather a touch of alarm that forces me to confirm contents now, than discovering weeks down the line as I work through the set that something's wrong and at that point can't return it.

Hope you're able to get your set sorted!

 

Whatever else might be said about the poorly reproduced sleeves, I really like what they did with the disc faces in the Full Tank. Some of them are gorgeous.

 

For anyone considering the tanks or the vinyl box let me say this: Even though there there were some mistakes made (and I'm neither happy about those mistakes nor am I excusing them) I am overall very happy with my purchase. I guess it depends on your situation. If you have the old CDs there's no need for the Full Tank. I bought the Full Tank as kind of an afterthought but I think the CDs sound good. Maybe not for you if you're concerned about loudness. The sonic quality of the vinyl though, is an upgrade I believe. Plus, some of the titles were not previously available on vinyl. Aside from the quality of artwork on 3 or 4 records I am very happy with the vinyl box (especially since a replacement will be sent out for BSM). The Overflow Tank may not be for serious collectors of the band as they may have had a lot of the content. But once again, I am very happy with the content of the Overflow Tank. I'm about 70% through listening to or watching everything in this tank and I haven't stopped smiling since I started. The live videos and audio are incredible. Others will rightly be more picky than me, and it really should have been cheaper especially considering some of the quality control issues, but I've listened to nothing else for the past week and a half and it's brought me a lot of joy so I am happy with my purchase.

I bought it blind on the first day of sale, people considering buying now can make a much more educated purchase.