Role Model (No Place Like Tour) – 5 February 2025 @ The Tivoli, Brisbane QLD
Role Model treats a stage like it’s a bad idea that somehow worked out.
Not sacred. Not dramatic. More like a place where Tucker Pillsbury is allowed to say the quiet part out loud, laugh at it, and then accidentally mean it. When he showed up at The Tivoli, it wasn’t with ceremony. It was with momentum. Like the night had already started somewhere else and he was just catching up.
The room was already buzzing before he appeared, that restless, slightly feral energy of a crowd that knows every lyric but also knows the night isn’t going to behave. Writing’s on the Wall didn’t open the set so much as slide underneath it. A scene-setter that felt intentional without feeling heavy. No big announcement. Just a quiet suggestion that said, stay with me, this is going somewhere. And it did.
Look at That Woman arrived with swagger and self-awareness baked in. He knew exactly what reaction he was getting and enjoyed it without milking it. That’s the thing with him. He never pretends not to know his own effect, but he also never takes it seriously enough to calcify. Scumbag followed and suddenly everyone was yelling lyrics like they were airing grievances on purpose.
He moved through Oh, Gemini and a little more time like he was pacing himself emotionally, letting the jokes land, letting the silences sit, letting sincerity creep in without announcing itself. His between-song chatter felt unscripted in the best way. Tangents. Self-interruptions. Thoughts arriving half-formed and leaving fully understood.
Superglue stuck. Literally. That chorus latched on and refused to let go. The Dinner shifted the temperature without warning, the kind of move that would derail a lesser set but felt earned here. Then Frances. No theatrics. No overreach. Just a song that trusts its own weight.
The Slut Era interlude didn’t pretend to be ironic or deep. It was just fun. Confident. A reminder that identity doesn’t need to be explained to be valid. And then Somebody Else. A risky cover choice made smart by context. Sung not as imitation, but as translation. It fit because it said something adjacent to everything else he’d already shown.
The back half of the set felt deliberately unpolished. Sally, When the Wine Runs Out bounced without apology. Slipfast moved fast and loose. that’s just how it goes landed like a shrug that knows exactly what it’s shrugging at. Compromise and blind pulled the focus tight again, the humour thinning out, the honesty staying put.
By forever&more, the night wasn’t trying to be anything. No climax. No grand emotional payoff. Just a steady sense that everyone was exactly where they were supposed to be.
Deeply Still in Love closed the set without insisting on being remembered. It didn’t linger. It didn’t plead. It just existed, confident enough to trust that was enough.
Role Model doesn’t perform heartbreak like a thesis. He doesn’t frame it as tragedy or triumph. He treats it like weather. Something that happens. Something you move through. Something you joke about while it’s still raining.
This wasn’t a show built to impress. It was built to connect sideways. And it worked, because it never tried to convince anyone of anything.
It just showed up, said what it wanted to say, and let the rest happen.
Which feels exactly right.