ABWH - Birthright (Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA 1989)

For me, this was an ABWH high-spot, indicating a potential new direction for the band. Jon (Anderson) gave the song an unusually coherent lyric, delivered with passion and sincerity. In 1954 the British Government conducted nuclear tests at Woomera in South Australia, among other places. A test site was established at Maralinga in 1955. Before the tests could begin the Maralinga Tjarutja, the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land, were forcibly removed. The subject matter of ‘Birthright’ has much in common with Australian band Midnight Oil’s politically-charged 1987 single ‘Beds Are Burning’, about returning land to the indigenous Aboriginal people. The group brought political and social injustices into the cultural mainstream through their music and lyrics, and leader Peter Garrett went on to become an environmentalist and activist, then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts in the Australian Government. In the old days Jon used to bang a tambourine very loudly when he was