Sharon Van Etten's Private Universe: A Brisbane Night of Fire and Frequency
- Ben Preece
- 10 hours ago
- 4 min read
LIVE REVIEW: Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, Cash Savage
The Tivoli, Brisbane
Tuesday, 18th November 2025
Words by Ben Preece
Photos by @somefx
Brisbane people are a delicate bunch. Get a sniff of rain and they won’t leave the couch — same for if it’s too hot, or not hot enough. The couch is a life preserver; if they leave it, they might not live through a work day tomorrow. Sure, sleep is important. But so is attending the occasional live gig for the greater good, in case the promoters of these amazing acts simply decide to stop sending artists our way. We already get next to no sideshows from festivals in the vicinity, and even now we’re seeing bands and tours beginning to skip us in favour of the Gold Coast. It’s maddening.
But for the active humans — the people who do get off their ass and support live music — tonight is a reward for every hour invested to date. We’re warmly welcomed into a world designed by Sharon Van Etten and treated to a phenomenal, world-class show. She is an artist in full command: open-hearted, grateful, and armed with beautiful energy in every sense of the word, with a killer group of players in tow. The Attachment Theory — drummer Jorge Balbi, bassist Devra Hoff, touring guitarist Shanna Polley, and multi-instrumentalist Teeny Lieberson on synths, guitars and seemingly whatever else the moment requires — are bulletproof. Concise, tight, intuitive: this collective has to be one of the finest on planet Earth right now. Their self-titled debut record together, released early in 2025, has earned universal praise, and tonight feels less like promotional touring and more like witnessing perfect synergy at work — a band built from the right people at the right time.
Before that, Cash Savage opens the night solo with an electric guitar, no Last Drinks in tow. She introduces ‘Every Day Is the Same’ as “the monotony of mental health,” her voice dry, wry, and disarmingly warm. Her closing song, ‘Keep Working at Your Job’, leans into a jagged, rockier feel — a cheeky jab at gym junkies with too much time on their hands. Her set is earnest and endearing, the kind of opener that reminds you connection in music still matters. She and Van Etten clicked on Instagram, and this tour support slot is the fruit of that time.
Then the stage drops into synth haze and Sharon steps forward. The band opens with ‘Live Forever’, a slow-burn swell that grows and grows until it engulfs the room. Someone needs to get this to the Stranger Things music supervisor pronto. ‘Afterlife’ follows, majestic and uplifting in its clarity, the electronics crisp as glass. Van Etten plays the consummate front person — commanding, arms flailing, hands extended, and yes, we are indeed voluntarily trapped in the palm of them.
By the time ‘Idiot Box’ slinks in, Devra Hoff’s bass is one of the night’s MVPs — superior playing, melodic and muscular, lifting the whole room a few inches off the floor.
The setlist lifts almost entirely from the recent album, with Van Etten’s solo songs filling out the edges brilliantly. The first of these is ‘Comeback Kid’ from 2019, stomping through on a four-to-the-floor heartbeat, anchored by Jorge Balbi’s precision and presence behind the kit.
‘I Can’t Imagine’ twitches like Talking Heads circa 1984, all tight synth stabs and pulsing drums. In fact, the whole first part of the show could effortlessly exist in another decade — one where guitars and synths coexist in beautiful union. Throughout, and it has to be mentioned, Teeny Lieberson moves with uncanny synchronicity to Sharon — often looking like two halves of the same thought expressed in different bodies. Sharon takes intentional moments with each member of the band; their connection is clearly more than merely musical.
‘Southern Life’ is the first dip in tempo (not in vibe), Sharon bending her voice into strange, intriguing shapes, while ‘Trouble’ floats in gently like a chilled fever dream. It’s the big single from the album, but it’s the most subtle of the set so far — proof of how strong the song actually is. Guitars are fetched for Sharon and Teeny for ‘Anything’, signalling a shift into something rockier. It slips into ‘Serpents’ without ceremony, guitars snarling forward and the crowd responding accordingly. Sharon pauses later to remind everyone to keep going, to hold each other close, to find community in a “fucked-up world,” and the sincerity of it lands with weight. The crowd responds with shouts of “I love you!” and “Shazza!” — sentiments not lost on Van Etten. She seems to understand the Aussie ways.
‘Seventeen’ remains the song, exploding into a communal scream-sing, Sharon passing the mic down to the front row with a proud, beaming grin. It’s here — in this roar of shared memory — that the band’s bond feels clearest: Jorge’s restraint, Devra’s pulse, Teeny’s colour, Sharon’s fire.
And what becomes obvious across the whole set is this: these songs live take on bold new heights. They’re bigger. Wilder. Rooted in rhythm, more human, built for something larger than the room. The record is undoubtedly brilliant; on stage, the live version is untouchable.
They close with ‘I Want You Here’, a moody, funeral-paced slow build that erupts into an instrumental frenzy, Sharon’s voice stretching toward something celestial. It’s their magnum opus of the evening — a moment so massive it feels self-authoring. This set is perfect, flawless, and with an encore still to come, whatever happens next feels like a bonus track: unnecessary but deeply welcome.
Returning to the stage, the encore brings ‘Tarifa’, dedicated poignantly to David Lynch, and ‘Indio’, a track she reveals the band wrote while she was out of the studio running errands — a casual experiment that becomes a tender, loosely held final moment.
A phenomenal performance. Sharon Van Etten, Jorge Balbi, Devra Hoff, Teeny Lieberson and Shanna Polley offer Brisbane (as a whole) something it absolutely doesn’t deserve but desperately needs: a Tuesday-night private universe, proof that live music is still church, cinema, therapy and communion all at once.
