And then, after few minutes of walking, there´s sea, wild and loud, deep
down under me, screaming into the red rocks. The blue sky is slowly breaking
through the grey mass of clouds, it was raining in the morning when I walked
from my farm to the bus station. But not now. Now I can see the sun reflecting
on the waves, white stones on the shore.
I wanted to go here, once. I travelled to Båstad and then I planned to
continue by bus and bike, up to this point where the land is ending, where
there´s nothing more than sea. I didn’t do it and with time I forgot it all
completely. As the time passed.
But now I’m here, staring into the wilderness, breathing the salt and
cold air. And I´d be able to miss it, the whole secret gig, just by staring
into the deep on the shore, I could get lost here. And it was Mando Diao who
brought me here. I had no idea, obviously. Nobody had. I didn’t want to go but
I was just around the corner, just on the opposite side from Båstad and it was
too tempting, it just happened and I left my quiet paradise that rainy Saturday
morning to see them, again, to let them take me on this adventure, back where I
once was.
Båstad looks different in spring, the sea is calm and flat, beach smelling
like seaweeds, streets are full of young people who came to see the show like
me. And people know. The girl at the hostel reception immediately asks me if
I’m here to see Mando. The city is theirs.
We are supposed to meet at the train station, there are plenty of people
there and we all get on the buses with secret destination and off we go. And I
have the feeling that we might be going there, I slowly remember the place I
wanted to see some years ago, we´re driving with the shore on our right side,
up through green fields.
Another adventure they’re taking me on without knowing, they’re saying it’s
their plan but it never is, they never really know what they’re causing.
We’re leaving the bus in the middle of the fields and we´re walking to
The Place. Its called Hovs hallar. But
I don’t stop at the designated point, I see the stage, but there’s something
more I need to see. So I’m walking straight ahead, through the gate to the
different space. And there it is. The
sea in its true version. I know they took me here same as I know they don’t
know. They don’t know about me and my story, about me and this place, about my
own adventure. They always somehow manage. The invisible ropes that are connecting
the lives of us all. And I’m standing at this point, on this rock, watching the
wild sea. There is nowhere to go. I know what that means.
It´s almost funny when I think of it. Seven years ago and now, here at
the end of the land. We were walking side by side, they were little bit ahead
of me, not really turning back and I was hurrying, thinking I might lost the
track if I slow down, I didn’t actually trying to catch them, I just wanted to
have them in sigh, let them lead me. To places I would never visited, to
friendships I would never had, to dreams I was too scared to even think about.
Life is an exact summary of coincidences, one Czech writer wrote once
and I’m realizing that my life has been the exact summary of Mando Diao
concerts and the coincidences within it. All the turnings my life took and the
sense and mistakes and all the rubbish around.
Now I came to this point and I have nothing, just like seven years ago
when I saw them for the first time. But this time, there is no path they can
show me. It’s all up to me. From now on.
When I’m coming back, the show is starting. Two guys in black are
entering the stage. Gustaf and Björn. And there’s everything. All those years
and some more. The pain. The lost. The great betray. That fucking love. All
songs mixed together, all those realities. They said we would sail on the boat,
out from the reality and never coming back, there is the smell of the sea and
sun on the break of the day, the old songs, the old hopes and the road our
lives took without us wanting it.
I can see it, they too are different. They too must have thought that it
would be different; they too are crashed by this huge machine called life. As
it seems to me. We all dance and scream and some in the first row, they’ve been
with them all along the way, maybe even more years than me and some got lost,
those I used to know, fans that used to love them so much, they just stopped
and forgot and there are some for the first time, perhaps, and some just simply
curious about this band and maybe it’s just me who see this old songs floating
above us like worn out toys, so beautiful yet sad and lonely.
And I don’t really know. I’m not really sure. If I understood. I have a
theory of my own, but it so many times proved me wrong. Maybe it was just
another gig of that special band that used to mean so much, maybe it was just
one Saturday, one trip in spring, no big deal.
But maybe we left on that boat and we´ll never coming back.
Maybe the land is really ending at those cliffs and maybe it’s time.
Time to go in a separate ways. Time to fight.
Time to jump.
This is one story. My own. What about the rest? Where would You be if
your path never ever crossed with Mando Diao?
