The new Australian documentary Midnight Oil 1984 follows the groundbreaking rock band on a national tour where their popularity not only vaulted to a new level, but their lead singer, Peter Garrett ran for the Senate in a federal election. If you were at one of those ferocious outdoor gigs that year, chances are there's a trace element of your voice in the finished film.

"Often with a lot of live concert material that you see filmed the point of mixing it is to get the audience out, but with this film it felt wrong that when you see an active audience you can't hear them. We spent a long time making the audience a part of the film," says the movie's director, Ray Argall. "There's a really strong story to it, but when the music is up there you had to feel it."

Rock documentaries that look back are too often either coronations after the fact or are driven by nostalgic longing, but Midnight Oil 1984 has such a palpable energy – as sound and as a shared experience – that it exists as more than a period piece. Promoting their fifth studio album, and the first to top the Australian charts, Red Sails in the Sunset, the group perform as one, from Garrett's electric current limbs to drummer Rob Hirst's charging backbeat.

"It wasn't about the lead singer being up front, commanding the audience, it was about how every person on stage worked together and communicated," Argall notes. "The communication between them is incredible. It's still a rock and roll concert, but the way they communicated was really important."