Being out of town at a festival on New Years Eve is pretty much a priority these days, what with road blocks, hordes of tourists and getting mugged. If you’re into live music, Rock the River is your only option near Cape Town. This year the festival was moved to the Ostrich Ranch near Malmesbury just outside CT, which it turns out was a weird choice seeing as there is no river there… just a muddy pool with reeds.

We arrived just before lunch on Saturday and took no time to set up our tent, crack open some beers and blast the car radio. Getting sozzled in the sun always seems to be a good idea at the time, and it was. We had no need to go anywhere for most of the afternoon due to the constant entertainment of people getting their cars stuck in the sand, so by the time we decided to head on down to the festival area walking was a problem.

The festival area was a pretty standard setup with a food area (which could have done with a few more stalls), a mechanical bull, swimming area, beer tent and three stages. Rock the River catered for pretty much most tastes with an electro tent, a metal tent and main stage. It was still blazing hot so we headed straight for the beer tent to chat, drink and enjoy the music from the safety of the shade. Through the haze of conversation and eventually wondering from tent to tent I remember actually watching two bands during the day. Which order they played in eludes me though. Junkyard Lipstick seemed to pull a fair crowd pumping out dirty girl-punk as only an all girl punk band can. Thought Police were as middle-of-the-road as middle-of-the-road gets but seemed to grab the attention of a few revelers with their radio-tailored pop.

I was actually more attracted to the Metal stage for most of the afternoon and evening, watching some epic shredders do their thing in the wind and some nutcases moshing in the heat. During the day Axxon played a rad show as usual. These guys always put on a performance and are great to watch.

After wondering back to the campsite for a few hours we eventually got our shit together and missioned back to the festival area for the New Years Eve party, to find the main stage heaving with a sizable crowd. Half Price got the crowd going before an awesome Peachy Keen performance. It’s hard not to dance around to rockabilly; its party music and this band know how to do it well.

Hog Hoggidy Hog were on at the main stage for the midnight countdown but we’ve seen them so many times before that we decided to join the moshing kids at the metal stage. Crow Black Sky came on dramatically, complete with Conan the Barbarian costumes, pyrotechnics, shredding and screaming. Even though I don’t usually listen to black metal I was totally impressed by the show they put on. Now that I think about it bringing in 2012 with a black metal band seems quite apt considering all the hype about an impending apocalypse.

Words by Etienne Buys

Photography by Louise Gale