25/05/2026
TONIGHT AT The Tivoli Brisbane - OPEN SEASON commences with:
Gil Scott-Heron by Brian Jackson(USA)
Presented by Astral People & Open Season
Mon 25 May 2026 - The Tivoli
https://openseason.live/events/gil-scott-heron-by-brian-jackson-and-yasiin-bey
And in response the full version of text:
The revolution will not be terrorised: reflections on a presence of Gil Scott-Heron
Gil. Scott. Heron. The first time I heard his baritone command of language as an instrument of awakening… as a motivational barricade of revolutionary action... was as a teen plundering the illicit airwaves of community radio 4ZZZ. An alternate-seeking youth back in the late hanging 70s, it felt like you were way out of the mainstream box, harbouring some hidden special oasis of music and thought. Scheming your way through a sonic earhole into the dark ebb of a rogue world of wild anarchy - as much as it wasn’t. It felt transgressive and transformational - that as an outsider teen I had found some taboo doorway only accessible to those on the outer realms. I felt validated in this edge of society membership, called out like the scions of pirates of old to reach for the political schisms that would shake the s**t out of the capitalist fog that we all seemed doomed to. Yeah… like I was somehow privileged in youth to join that battle against the somnolent status quo. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised was a calling card and I reached deep into the powerful intoxicating rhymes of Scott-Heron with all the force that it resonated with. It struck like a molotov of poetic freedom I had suddenly found a match for… a match of rebelliousness. But I was just another wh**ey over the moon transfixed by the aural majesty of wearing this subversive refrain of musical political subculture loud and proud.
But was it even speaking to me? My youth never even questioned that - of course it must be. At the time, it more likely spoke to my shallow recourse growing up in the clownlike shadow of the corrupt puppet show of Joh and the rotten gerry-mandered Nationals, that had this state in a grip of vice posing as moral certitude. Although, it would be hard to call it “dangerous” when compared to the actions of the vile genocidal nature of the current Israeli government or even the idiot slob ruling over the rapidly compromised USA. I was also inoculated from the extreme criminal injustice by skin colour… born into the privilege of being white and male. Anything outside of that most definitely was subjected to the more dangerous overreach of an unjust constabulary hell bent on their abuses of power… deaths in custody and other such acts of racist thuggery.
All the same standing in solidarity as allies with those violently oppressed left to some small degree an exposure to this right wing goose overstep marching down our streets. Gil Scott-Heron was a call to stand up and fight for all of our rights… a calling that screams just as loud today with our current version of the Joh days and the uncritically minded latest sham hoard holding their paper mache throne, swallowed up in the corrupt manifestation of fascist farce theatre. The revolution will not be terrorised - no matter where you sit on the fence stand up for the civil well-being of our society held hostage to such charlatans.
Then in 1995 I found myself in even greater cultural fortune - suddenly handed the opportunity to promote a performance of this most inspiring piece of my teen political ambitions - presenting a live show of Gil Scott-Heron. It seemed like a dream alignment moment of trenchant opportunism. Yes… was the only answer to such a possibility. Now I truly was on the moon. In all humility... to be handed not only the opportunity to fund and deliver such a wonderful artist in this city of tepid revolutions, but to occupy the immediate rarefied proximity of a rhythmic orator of such aspiring orientations. Caught speechless in the face of rap’s poetic progenitor. The awe left me high and everything caught up in the spirits of being face to face with this pedastaled master - grounded like the meat of my being in the presence thereof, I had to stay in order and not allow myself to spin wildly in a excess of sycophancy. Play it cool… in the face of utter coolness - his voice filling the air with such power of prosaic presence.
Strangely all this time later I have one strong memory standing at the back of the room in my favoured spot near the mixing desk, seeing/hearing the age-old presence of Gil Scott-Heron, in my applying all the cliche sentiments I tinker with here, lost in the smooth jazz steam emanating from this archetypical breath of uttered poetic resistance. 400 or so of those awakened to the non-televised all held aloft in his transcendent sway. I purchased his books of poetry to further indulge the weight of incandescence of this short lived screen of tacit connection. The ephemeral sounds and presence left to the witness of my mind. There is a power in the transcience of moments received, grasped with meaning in profound ways… as against the current superfluous excess of capturing every moment to media eroding the value of that lived experience. It may no longer be televised but that excess of digitisation defies our being plugged into those moments, as that expanding archive of catalogued memory and self-surveillance tunes us out to the urgency of any change.
And then - I’m New Here… the final 2010 document stewarded by Richard Russell aka XL is a master statement of finality on par with David Bowie’s musical exit Blackstar. It swept me asunder when I first heard it… it truly had a strong sense of newness to the “post-industrial blues” backed verbal tone of such an understated master of political/musical convection finding growing pace in a differing world, his being freed from the back of incarceration. His voice made me feel I was touching his mind all over again but this time with greater sensitivity. It left me humbled and awakened in the same manner as the past. It's touch on all those that felt this didn’t stop, with further reinventions forged by Jamie XX and his ingenious remix release We’re New Here… and then more recently 2020s We’re New Again’s reimagining by one of the great modern jazz/hiphop-esque drummers Makaya McCraven (whom I had good fortune to witness playing to a handful of people in the back streets of Milton some years ago). Someone possessed of a shared aura of creative existence deep in the now of lived moment.
And now we have this revisitation on our cards, dealt by original collaborator, pianist Brian Jackson together with Yasiin Bey… take hold of this with the ears and hearts one touches such commitments, and know the living is in creative evocations. The revolution will not be eulogised but renewed through cyclic reinventions. No instant replays… no reruns… where any chance of a revolution will always be alive!
