Sony Music is proud to announce Midnight Oil’s 1990 New York concert, ‘Black Rain Falls’, will be released for the first time on DVD on Friday June 20th

On May 30, 1990, Midnight Oil interrupted their North American tour for a “special guerrilla action” outside Exxon Oil headquarters on the crowded Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan. The agitprop event from the back of a flat-bed truck drew more than 10,000 people out of the nearby office buildings and onto the street. The Oils were responding to one of the worst environmental disasters in US history when nearly 11 million gallons of oil were spilled onto the pristine Alaskan coastline by the Exxon Valdez. Twenty five years later the effects of the spill on the landscapes and wildlife of southern Alaska are still being felt.

“There are things we think are so important that they have to be said,??? lead singer Peter Garrett told a packed international press conference after the performance, “and the best way we could say it was with song. What happened this morning was just another of the things that this band has tried to do for the last decade or so. We want to take some of the issues that are in the songs back onto the streets where they belong.”

The DVD features all six songs captured live that day: “Progress” (From the 1986 EP, Species Deceases); “Sometimes” and “Dreamworld” (from 1987’s Diesel And Dust); “Blue Sky Mine” and “River Runs Red” (from Blue Sky Mining, 1990); the apropos tribute to John Lennon, “Instant Karma” and the video clip for Midnight Oil’s “King Of The Mountain” (also from Blue Sky Mining), plus commentary on each track from the band.