Midnight Oil - The Real Thing - Alternate Version (2000-2002)

In 2000, Midnight Oil released an album called "The Real Thing." But it was a rather odd album. It had four new songs, and the rest were live acoustic versions from 1993 and 1994, when the band played on MTV's "Unplugged" show and did some acoustic concerts after that. (Although it's more accurate to call them semi-acoustic performances, since they played with all their band members, including their drummer.)

I've already posted the four new songs on the stray tracks album "Spirits of the Age." And I've also already posted the full version of the 1993 "Unplugged" concert. However, I happened to be able to make a VERY alternate version of this album, using entirely different performances, but keeping to the same acoustic-y concept.

The main reason I'm able to do this is because, after not playing in acoustic format for a bunch of years, the band played six songs in that format for a US radio show in 2002, shortly before the band broke up. So that makes up a majority of this album, tracks three through eight. The first song, "The Real Thing," was played on a TV show in 2000. The second song, "No Man's Land," was released in an acoustic version in 2001.

So that's all acoustic-y stuff done from 2000 to 2002. But that alone only makes for 33 minutes of music. It so happens I have a few songs from earlier years (1994 to 1996) that were also done in acoustic format but weren't included in the "Unplugged" show I posted. So I added them near the end. 

Finally, the last song is from yet another different time, 2009. It only features the band's lead singer, Peter Garrett, with Jimmy Barnes, who is a famous rock star in Australia. It's an acoustic version of the Jethro Tull classic "Locomotive Breath."

All in all, this ends up being a grab-bag of all the worthy acoustic versions the band did that didn't make it to the "Unplugged" album. The sources may be from different years, but it still makes for a nice, cohesive listen.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 The Real Thing (Midnight Oil)
02 No Man's Land [Acoustic Version] (Midnight Oil)
03 Golden Age (Midnight Oil)
04 Beds Are Burning (Midnight Oil)
05 Luritja Way (Midnight Oil)
06 The Dead Heart (Midnight Oil)
07 Short Memory (Midnight Oil)
08 Tone Poem (Midnight Oil)
09 Tin Legs and Tin Mines (Midnight Oil)
10 U.S. Forces (Midnight Oil)
11 Surf's Up Tonight (Midnight Oil)
12 Locomotive Breath (Peter Garrett & Jimmy Barnes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15181089/MidnightO_2000-2002_TheRealThngAlternte_atse.zip.html

Just like the music in the album, the cover is only very loosely based on the original "Real Thing" album. I used the same text style for the top and bottom. But the original cover is just more of that background yellow to red pattern. So instead I found a photo of band in acoustic mode. Unfortunately, the photo was done way later, in 2015, around the time the band started to reunite. But I guess that's kind of fitting, since the music here is from a bunch of different years.

And by the way, while I was looking for a good picture for this cover, I found a better one for the "Unplugged" album I already posted. So I've changed the cover for that album as well.