Music festival at a tannery factory
The festival offers a wide variety of artists spanning all genres and draws in crowds every year. Photo: Sóley Björk Guðmundsdóttir
Once a year a storage of a woolskin tannery factory is emptied of lamb skin rugs (Icelandic: gæra) to make way for a concert stage and a crowd prepared for fun and some great music.
Gæran Music Festival is much like the lamb skin rug it is named after, it’s cosy, welcoming and suits all, as the variety of music genres is considerable – everything from folk to rap and heavy metal.
Gæran is a three-day event in Sauðárkrókur, North Iceland, which kicks off on Thursday with a soloist night at Mælifell, one of the local bars. This first night of the festival has more of an easy-going pub atmosphere, whereas the rest of the festival is more upbeat. This night is really a lovely way to start of the weekend, a laid back evening offering great music.
The main events of the festival take place on Friday and Saturday at Loðskinn, the tannery factory which inspired this whole event. For the festival, the storage house is dubbed with a stage and some woolskin for decoration. It’s not too fancy, it’s not that kind of festival, but it has a nice vibe and the overall feel is rather cool.
The artists at Gæran are a blend of local musicians, smaller bands and renowned performers. The biggest names this year are one of Iceland’s biggest pop stars Páll Óskar, the popular metal/rock band Dimma and one of the hippest bands in Iceland right now, reggae band Amabadama. - SK
Icelandic rap outfit Úlfur Úlfur at last year's Gæran festival. Photo: Gæran
