M4A winterfest: a metal invasion on Afrikaans soil

This Saturday I made the long trip up to Stellenbosch with a motley crew of fellow metalheads to witness the annual Metal for Africa Winterfest. Before I get into the bands, I want to paint a quick picture of what it’s like to go to a heavy metal festival right in the middle of the very Afrikaans town of Stellenbosch.

Imagine the Klein Libertas theatre, a small quaint looking place with walls covered in posters from Afrikaans adaptations of Shakespeare plays and Anton Goosen concerts. Now insert into that image a collection of hair metal heads in full black with some of them even taking it as far as painting their faces and wearing creepy coloured contact lenses. It was like half of the guests at the Wacken music festival in Germany just decided to invade my Ouma’s living room for a night.

And the music! 9 bands, most of them top quality. Ok, so Animus fall was substandard instrumentals with a decent vocalist and Peasants were very forgettable but Ing brought the anti-establishment thrash metal like nobody’s business and I’m surprised that nobody died during the Maximum carnage mosh pit. Their heavy machine gun drumming and hellish vocals were almost enough to put the fear of god in me and I had to rush out before the set ended to get some fresh air. The band that really stood out for me though was Strident.

Strident brings the Power metal to South Africa with enough heroism and technical skill to rival some of the best international acts. Their front man is a shaggy-haired Afrikaner who knows exactly how to work a crowd. I found myself standing with my fist in the air singing along to songs about medieval wars and knowing with certainly that if I was to ever take part in a real conquest I’d want this man leading me into battle.

We left Stellies very late that night covered in bruises from moshing and with stiff necks from head banging and got lost again on the way home. Now all that’s left to do is wait for the next one.

By Charl Oosthuizen