Alright, so despite my being a fan of midnight oil’s older music, I never actually saw them live. Then I came upon a video on youtube. And another, and another… at this point I’m fairly convinced that Paul Garrett is actually dancing, and not just having a seizure every time he steps on stage. So… what’s the deal with the Elaine impression?
(for those of you who haven’t seen midnight oil live, I urge you to look at footage of their concerts; the lead singer’s choreography is unbelievably bad.)
Currently, my theory is that he was trying to make a political point by going to show that Australian politics are such that a man can dance like that and still become a respected member of parliament.
I like your theory (even though I don’t especially care for all of their politics), but the common story that Peter Garrett says is that he learned that dance in the early days of playing at pubs (bars) where people were throwing drinks at him, and he developed a way of dancing that let him avoid the flying glasses. Once the glasses stopped, it seems he liked the effect, and kept at it.
He was dancing like that many years before he became involved in politics at all (as the figure head of the Nuclear Disarmament Party in the 1980’s) let alone since he bacame a mainstream member of Parliament.
I once saw Peter Garrett at another band’s show in Sydney. He was standing up the back trying to be inconspicuous except that he is very tall, very bald, was wearing a full length leather jacket and dancing on the spot in a slightly more subdued version of his stage performance. One of the strangest things I have ever seen.
I’m not sure how well known he was at the time, I knew who he was from managing a band that had played with the Oils so I had seen him a few times.
Maybe he just went to the same Arthur Murray School of Dance as Joe Cocker, Michael Stipe and David Byrne.