Singer-songwriter Matthew Mole breezed in a little late on Tuesday and found a small entourage of fans scattered around the newly-placed wooden benches... waiting.
And after a speedy setup and minute-long sound check the young artist, accompanied by Jack Straw on a basic drum kit, fell comfortably into a short indie-inspired set. His opener "Blind" (as well as other tracks off his free EP) was wracked with subtle religious undertones through lines like: "People sometimes are forever out of line/But the powers from above are just the friendliest surprise/All that I know is I can beat the man as tall as his lies".
Mole has chosen to throw himself into an already forest of indie folk practitioners, but his incorporation of electronica elements and lyrical themes set him on a slightly different branch from most others.
Tonight, it was only halfway through his second track that I realised no one in the audience was carrying out their usual overtly loud, Weiss-fuelled conversations.. People were listening intently. At &Union. So much so that we had to make sure there was photographic evidence of this.
Mole is a breath of fresh air blown in from Fish Hoek's seaside – unique in his humble nature and despite his sheepishness of "turning into a cover band at the end" after covering Regina Spector's "Us" and MGMT's "Kids" he gladly indulged the crowd's call for two encores.
Tuesdays on Fire was created with artists like Matthew Mole in mind and hopefully, will provide a platform for up-and-coming artists of his calibre to continue long into the future.