Bittersweet concert: Harlej for the last time at MOOD
The club MOOD in Hradec Králové is well known to everyone for whom music is not just background noise at work or a companion on car journeys, but also an escape from the rushed reality of everyday life. All the sadder, then, is the news that this May the club will definitively close and make way for residential development. Why this decision was made and what led to it can only be guessed. All that remains is to wish the people around MOOD the best of luck on their next journey and quietly hope that the club will one day return, perhaps in a different form or at another location.
The bitter taste was already there, so it needed to be replaced with something sweeter. And that is exactly what the evening with the band Harlej provided.
The autograph session took place almost unnoticed. Suddenly they were simply sitting there—and within a few minutes a queue of fans formed who did not want to miss this moment. It was clear that this was not just an ordinary concert evening, but one of the last opportunities to meet the band in the premises of MOOD.
The evening opened with the band Loco Loco, who took the stage exactly as scheduled and pleasantly warmed up the audience. At first, it seemed that part of the visitors remained rather cautious, but with each additional song the atmosphere loosened. Gradually, people began to dance, sing, and fully enjoy the concert. The song Loco Jumbo received a strong response; it plays with the melody of the well-known track Coco Jumbo and managed to get even the last skeptics in the hall moving.
Harlej did not keep the audience waiting long and, without unnecessary delay, launched straight into their best-known songs. The setlist pleased fans across generations—older hits as well as newer material were performed. The band also did not forget to remind everyone of Vláďa Šafránek, without whom Harlej would never have been formed and who remains inseparably connected with their history. And of course, the song Svařák could not be missing, as it is one of those without which a Harlej concert can hardly be imagined.
During the evening, the singer also could not resist a small tease directed at the audience. When it came time for the joint singing of Holka modrooká, he mentioned that recently the audience in Pardubice had sung louder. The hall reacted immediately—after all, the rivalry between Hradec and Pardubice runs deep. But Hradec got a second chance to prove the opposite. And it made full use of it. The MOOD club had quite a task handling that surge of energy. Because Hradec is a matter of the heart!
The atmosphere of the evening was exactly what one hopes for when saying goodbye to a place that had significance for the local scene. People sang, applauded, remembered—and above all, the music was played with full commitment.
The Harlej concert at MOOD was therefore not just another stop on a tour. It was a symbolic farewell to a club that hosted hundreds of concerts, meetings, and musical experiences. And that is precisely why this evening had a special, slightly bittersweet flavor.
MOOD is ending. The memories remain.