For more than a decade now, live music has filled the air for three days running at Rockin’ the Rivers, the popular outdoor music festival in the high hills out near Lewis and Clark Caverns west of Three Forks. This year’s August 9-11 lineup looks to be another crowd-pleaser.

Rockin’ the Rivers has become one of the hotter tickets during the summer festival season in the northern Rocky Mountains. Past acts have included big names like Peter Frampton, Alice Cooper, Foghat, Ted Nugent, Rare Earth, The Doobie Brothers, Joan Jett, and Kenny Loggins. An estimated 6,000 fans show up over the three-day show to listen to music, camp, and spend time with friends old and new. Hardcore rock and roll fans, as well as dedicated Rockin’ the Rivers diehards, begin showing up at the show on Thursday, Aug. 8. There’s usually a jam session or two held somewhere in the 140-acre venue that night, but the show officially begins on Friday with local favorites The Booze Hounds on the main stage at 1:00 pm. A great pick to get the ball rolling at Rockin’ the Rivers, the Booze Hounds have been belting out the rock and roll “trailer-trash style” for nearly a decade years in the Bozeman area and beyond. With multiple CDs under their belts, a diverse range of tunes from rock to country, and a full schedule of performance dates year ’round, this band just keeps getting better.

Another regional band, Liberty Lush from Idaho Falls, Idaho, hits the main stage after The Booze Hounds. The band calls their brand of   “beautiful yet dirty” rock and roll “Lush Rock.” The members of Liberty Lush take their stage names from the liquor they were drinking the night they met: Lord Calvert on bass, Rip Van Winkle on drums, Johnny Walker and Ron Rico on guitars, and X [after X-rated Vodka] on vocals.

Trixter takes the stage after Liberty Lush, at around 3:15 pm. Trixter is a   glam rock band which first saw success in the 1980s but disbanded in the ‘90s. The band came back together with their current lineup in 2008 and began touring again, and the crowd at Rockin’ the Rivers is sure to enjoy the hard-driving tunes and onstage showmanship this band brings. Trixtster will be followed up on the main stage at 5:30 pm by Firehouse, another hard-driving late ‘80s glam rock band.

The metal music continues on Friday evening with two California-based bands: Hollywood’s Warrant opens up the main stage entertainment at 7:45, followed by Tesla at 10. While Warrant gained fame as a glam rock band in the late ‘80s, Tesla, formed earlier in that decade, ground out the hard rock without the leather pants and big hair, leaning instead toward jeans and t-shirts. Both bands are sure to bring the Rockin the Rivers crew out of any afternoon lethargy. Returning to Rockin the Rivers to close out Friday’s entertainment is a Rockin the Rivers favorite, the Led Zeppelin tribute band No Quarter on the main stage at midnight.

Though the noise of happy campers continues far into the early morning, long after the bands have packed it in, mornings are often pretty peaceful at the venue as a result. The smell of breakfast cooking, and the rising sun warming up tents and trailers, usually serves to get those late-nighters out of the sack in time to wander up to the festival grounds for a bite to eat from any of several onsite vendors before the music fires back up at on the main stage at 1 pm with perennial Rockin’ the Rivers favorite and Montana native in the truest sense of the word: Crow Indian rocker Jared Stewart. Long-time Rockin’ the Rivers participants have watched this musician just get better and better, and have watched his son grow into a young man and into quite a rocker in his own right on that main stage.

Rock and roll with a Southern bent comes to the main stage at 3:15 pm with the band Saliva, formed in Tennessee in the mid-‘90s, followed by Saving Abel, out of Corinth, Mississippi, at 5:30. The Southern flavor continues in the evening on the main stage at 7:45 with Black Stone Cherry, a band with Kentucky roots.

Multi-talented signer-songwriter Rick Springfield headlines the show on Saturday night. This Aussie rocker (and, at times, daytime soap actor) won a Grammy in the early ‘80s for best male rock vocal performance with his hit “Jessie’s Girl,” which is sure to reverberate from the surrounding hillside sometime during his shot at Rockin’ the River’s main stage at 10 pm. Saturday night wraps up at the witching hour with the another perennial Rockin’ the Rivers favorite tribute band from festivals past, the all-girl AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles.

By Sunday morning, the crowd is getting a little crispy. Lots of rock combined with heat, a wind storm or two to make repairs after, and often copious amounts of alcohol, can do that to the most hardcore rock fan. But the music starts a little slower (just a little) at 1 pm on Sunday with Peter Rivera, former lead singer and drummer of Rare Earth, the legendary rock band formed in the late ‘60s. Whiskey River, a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band which wowed the Rockin’ the Rivers crowd last year, takes the main stage at 3;15, followed up by another repeat performance at the bridge by the band Sweet, which will surely provide the crowd with another Ballroom Blitz like they did in 2009.

The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band takes the main stage at 7:45 Sunday evening. This “completely self-taught” guitarist and singer-songwriter says he began playing guitar at about age seven after being “mesmerized” by the guitar work of rock legend Stevie Ray Vaughn. He has been on the stage performing since the age of 13, and his band is sure to keep the crowd around for a glimpse of and a listen to this rock protégé.

Southern rock takes the main stage once more at 10 pm with Jackyl, a band which did gain some notoriety for a “chainsaw solo” with their single hit “The Lumberjack.” Chances are the chainsaw will surface Sunday night. The action wraps up for Rockin’ the Rivers 2013 at midnight with the Arch Allies, a tribute band with not one but three nods, to the rock bands Journey, Styx, and REO Speedwagon. This band should leave the diehards panting for Rockin’ the Rivers 2014 to roll around quickly.

For more information about Rockin’ the Rivers 2013, including camping information, ticket prices and more, visit rockintherivers.com, or call the Rockin’ the Rivers crew, which is under new management this year, at 866-285-0097. The website is packed full of pertinent information, from ticket outlets to camping information and history of the event. Happy rockin’!

Pat Hill is a freelance writer and music lover from Bozeman Montana.