Triggerfish Brewing Co.

Here is a Weekender post that has a multitude of levels! We planned this little outing to go see Jaques Moolman perform at the Triggerfish Brewing. It turned into quite an enjoyable experience!

We live in Table View, Cape Town and the Triggerfish is in Somerset West which is a good 50kms to travel. Somerset West is located within the crescent of the south-facing False Bay.

This bay got its name 300 years ago because sailors would confuse this bay with another bay and coming past the one south-facing point, they would believe they had circumvented Africa from the east and wpould sail into the bay in error.

It is massive and you can stand on one side and see the mountains on the other side of the bay. In poor weather conditions you cannot see the other side and I guess that must have been the condition of the weather when these historic sailors made this mistake.

Somerset West and Strand are right next to each other. Here there are massive sandy beaches. Rather different from the churned-up short shortline of the Atlantic that we have on the West Coast.

The Triggerfish Decor

The Triggerfish is a brewery, a bar, a restaurant and... somewhat of an art exibition!

A lot of the decor in this place is mechanical or something that the owner must have built on site. There are bikes and cars mounted on the walls. There is a baggy outside that looks like it comes straight out of Mad Max!

Skeletons, a canoe and engine parts all around! So interesting! Outside I found parts of an airplane and a workshop with a forge and an anvil! Awesome!

The Restaurant

When you look at the pictures on the Facebook page for Triggerfish you will see that a lot of users took pictures of their Nachos! @merenludick ordered nachos and made a post about it!

With good reason, their nachos are great! They also have burgers and @clairemobey, @aimeludick and myself all took burgers and chips. I took the house speciality burger. Burget patty, bacon, jam and brie cheese! It was a unique burger and it was really good!

Jacques Moolman's live performance!

So the real reason we had gone all that way was to see the Moolman performance. @clairemobey had made contact with this artist during the 2020 lockdown and she had done some backing harmonies for a song of his that she really liked. Tiny Revenge is the song's name and I have easily listened to this song dozens of times!

When @clairemobey say that Jacques was going to be in Cape Town for live performances we made a plan and we made plans to go see him.

Just before the performance, @clairemobey unearthed that Jacques was a SAMA (South African Music Awards) award winner and suddenly she became nervous of going to meet him. She felt a little silly contacting this musician on Facebook out of the blue, wondering what he would be thinking of her.

Before the show, @clairemobey and I were outside so she could have a cigarette. I looked about and asked her if she could see Jacque. She did and I walked on over and introduced myself.

This guy is down to earth and a really nice guy! I asked him if we would be willing to take a picture with my girlfriend to which he readily agreed.

He did not have to go far and the moment he saw Claire he recognised her! No doubt, he knew who this was, the lady who had contacted him with an interest in his music!

After all, I had reasoned with Claire before and after this, that Jacques is a musician and a human and it is really cool when someone actually pays so much attention to your music!

On stage Jacques is an experienced and powerful force, able to carry a stage presance all on his own. He was playing songs from a specific album, but totally slipped Tiny Revenge into the performance. I tip of the hat in @clairemobey's direction!

Altogether, this was a great little family date evening and treat for us. The kids had fun and the adults felt spoilt. it was well worth the trip.

Claire got to see a live performance just before her own performance at the Barleycorn, which also helped her a lot. This live performance was amazing, but live performances are not studio performances.

Afterward, I could go over little details of what Jacque did on stage. With his experience, he was able to do things to his music and his performance that just made it all the more ALIVE. Great lessons were learned.

I hope we get to see Jacque Moolman in the future soon!

Cheers
@zakludick