Stand up and take the fight

 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? 

Full Moon

You know that feeling when suddenly one song from your favourite band that doesn´t exist anymore starts playing and you instantly turn into completely different mood than you were before and you out of nowhere have this urge feeling to write something on your blog you almost forgot about, this strong necessity to say it ALL, to describe all those feelings, fears and memories. And then, the song stops, cause that is what songs usually do, they stop, just so unexpectedly like they began, anyway the song stops playing and this high feeling is suddenly gone (forever) and all you actually have is emptiness. Cause you actually don´t feel like writing anymore. Certainly not to that blog noone cares about. And you absolutely don´t want to write (again) some heartbreaking feelings that will be missunderstood (again) and you don´t want to (really don´t want to) read some impressive comments from someone who knows everything better.
So you just lie on your bed again, so tired (after work, broken dreams and after that pityfull realization you actually don´t have anything to say to anybody) and listen to some other music until it happend again, like a stroke, some other song from the same band, that one that made you once act like crazy, that one that gave you days of what life means, that one that doesn´t exist anymore and this time you grab the computer before it fades away and you actually REALLY write something. Something completely different that you wanted. And you don´t care.
Cause lately you felt to the ground. Cause lately it seems like the song always ends too soon. Cause lately you just keep asking: What the fuck was the fucking point? Cause lately you lost the track of yourself completely and cause lately you fear that that guy who was singing if you still believe in magic doesn´t believe in it anymore. And you´re scared (so scared) that you actually don´t believe in it either.
And then the song ends again.
And you´re just tired from the work. From meeting all those horrible people.

And you still don´t know a shit about it all.

And life´s still beautiful.

Day One

Well, this one´s for You.

If we scream and shout

From the last Infruset concert in Borlänge. The trailer to the bigger and whole concert movie that is hopefully coming soon.
And it´s one year now since we saw the Infruset movie in the cinemas, you remember?

They are like a hurricane

It’s an English pub, dark English pub. And there are some heavy metal bands that are going to play tonight. I’m here because of LES GORDONS. The band I fell in love with few months ago. Now they are finally back in Stockholm.

I’ve seen lots of bands live in my life. It was just a few of them that made me feel alive for a while. It was Mando Diao and Sugarplum Fairy for sure. It was The Royal Concept sometimes. It was Johnossi, of course. And it was Les Gordons which is something I wouldn’t expect. Not from a new young band.

Their performance was impressive, rough, breathtaking. I felt like I was time traveller and suddenly appeared down in the past watching one of the early Mando Diao shows. One of those I missed and I always wanted to see. I felt like I got the chance. Not with the Mando Diao themselves, but with Les Gordons.

Above all Les Gordons are full of energy, passion and self-confidence. Deathly combination. They simply get you. I believe in them. They have it. Like Mando Diao. They are going to be big.

You want to be part of it? Don’t miss the chance, be there right from the start. See the whole story.

You know how? Join the Official Street Team of Les Gordons. To begin with like the page and get in touch with me. Together we’ll make this ride worth it!

Link here: https://www.facebook.com/officialstreetteamlesgordons

I followed Music

It feels little bit unreal when I think of it. Like most of the things over the past year. As it seems I was in Borlänge yesterday. There were no Peace&Love festival. And it wasn´t exactly summer. I didn´ t travel back to the Czech Republic as I used to do. I just got on a train and went home. To Stockholm. But that doesn´t matter, that is not what is it all about. 

It´s about one concert. One concert in Folkets park, over there where I saw The Vaccines or Carl Norén playing once. Everything seemed to be so small, the whole park, the whole Borlänge. Small and quiet. And there was me. Small and insignificant, unable to change it, we all were. Just powerless against that huge mistake. As always. 

Cause there were suppouse to play Sugarplum Fairy that day. And they didn´t. 

Cause there were one moment, one instant when everything was absolutely wrong and I just couldn´t bare it. The whole picture was broken. There were Viktor and Carl Norén singing Sweet Jackie. There were Gustaf and the band Mando Diao. It was in Borlänge on Athena stage. And I knew that this is not the way it should be. I shouldn´t be there. They should´t be singing that song on that stage with Mando Diao. They shouldn´t be there at all. It was surreal and absurd picture saying me that maybe there was no sence in anything after all. That the dreams are fake. It wasn´t sadness, it was all just too unbelievable to me. Like most of the things over the past year. 

I heard one stupid song when I went to the station the other day. To the train that took me from Borlänge. From that city where it all started for me once.

So there was this song. I don´t really know the lyrics but she sung something like: "You´re the reason why I´m here." And she was true. 

Cause Mando Diao, if I never ever got to know you I woudn´t live in Sweden. I woudn´t got to know the other bands. The other people. The people who now means so much, so much it´s almost hard to breath. I woudn´t have written what i wrote. I woudn´t dream the same dreams. My life would have been completely, absolutely different, on different place, with different story. My whole past. Maybe my whole future. That pain. That sadness would be different. All that happienes. The sense. The point. Me. I would have been diffrent person. 

And in that moment, while you were playing Sweet Jackie I wasn´t really sure if it is right. But it must be, don´t you think?

Cause it must have been the year 2008 or something and I was stading on the bus stop, listening to "You Don´t Understand Me" and there is this line saying: But I will always be the one who holds you in the end... and I thought it was true. Is it?

Popovic

Love this photo.