“By the way, this is not a concert”

The moment I entered the concert hall, I felt how my heart was being filled with lightness. The walls were full of colourful lights shaped as flowers, of flowers shaped as lights. Walking through the middle of the room felt like my soul was being caressed for a moment.

Usually, when you go to a concert, you have some kind of expectation about it. You may be a great fan of the artist; have those one or two favourite songs you are especially excited about hearing live. However, some experiences are impossible to anticipate. You cannot imagine before what will happen but only reimagine after you have lived through them. And so it was with the concert by Alex Serra in the MeetFactory in Prague on the 5^th of September 2025. It was the first time that the Barcelona-born artist played in the capital of Czech Republic. It was the first time for me to see him live. Listening to this music live has thrown me back to all the moments I listened to the songs. And probably, I have never been more present in a moment than when I was standing in the audience, right in front of Alex Serra performing his songs, that carry us into another world, into a world that is more real.

I find my way towards the stage. Throughout the room there are some groups – or rather pairs – of people. There is still a lot of space to be filled. I enjoy this tranquil and at the same time loving energy that surrounds me. Looking around, I see most of the people are couples, some women seem to be on their own, just like this young girl leaning on the wall at the left side of the room. I want to be in the middle of the room, so I can feel the wholeness around me, I think to myself. I realize that, for concert conditions, it’s still pretty quiet in the room. It’s probably because there are not any remixes being played through the speakers. What we can hear is a soundtrack out of the forest, of birds and crickets chirping, of nature naturing.

A woman walks to the middle of the stage. She builds up her microphone, putting her guitar around the neck – tonight’s support act. (Later I found out that she is a Slovakian singer, Eniesa). Just like a magnet, with her presence she pulls the audience closer to the stage. More and more people are entering the main concert hall. She starts speaking in a language that I don’t understand. I immediately feel attracted to her way of being. Her smile carries authenticity, her eyes brightness. She starts playing. In her voice I can hear that her heart is full of grace, in the whispers of her guitar I hear joy and lightness. Slowly, very slowly, bodies start moving. Maybe it’s the blood flowing faster than usual. I, too, cannot resist to gently wave my body through the air. The colour of the headlights is changing. From purple to turquoise, back to purple, then blue and red. As I look into the crowd, I get emotional, feeling enormously thankful for the universe allowing us to open up spaces like these. About two meters right from me, there is a woman dancing barefoot, her eyes closed, a smile on her face. On my left I can see the image of a family that carries more love than I could ever have imagined seeing with my eyes: father, mother and daughter are putting their arms around each other’s necks while they lean their backs towards one and another. As I see that many let themselves fall into the moment while having their eyes closed, I close mine as well. I open them. I close them. As I can’t stop to move to the music, I get dizzy when they are shut. Therefore, I prefer to watch people and to see how beautiful the artist looks on stage.

I am already so emotionally attached. And this was only the preact. While she is building her equipment back (the microphone and the guitar), I notice there is a candle right in front of the mic stand. Its flame connects all our gazes.

When Alex Serra, tonight’s headline act, comes on the stage, a veil of harmony is being thrown into the room. Tranquil forest sounds accompany him on his slow walk to the microphone in the middle of the stage. On his right, his guitar, and a huge DJ desk, where his friend Totidub will be doing his magic.

“Hello”, Alex says with his voice color of rainbow, “how are you doing?”

From the first moment on, he casts a spell on us.

“And by the way, this is not a concert.”, he notes with a relaxed mind, “This is a transformational ritual. Together we will go on a journey. Each of us makes an intention now. And with that intention we imagine entering into a spaceship and travel through universe.”

Alex starts playing enchanting sounds on the guitar. Then he puts it down and picks up a sound bowl. Their playings slowly end up in the melody of the song SO FREE. It seems like they are improvising, but the result is too good to be improvised. Guitar sounds, handpans and nature chirps are flirting with each other.

I feel tears dropping from my face onto my breast. There is so much gratitude, nostalgia, happiness, and sadness lying in them. It’s especially Alex’ words before he plays the song SANA CORAZÓN (“Healthy Heart”) making me so emotional. He describes how sometimes, we tend to make ourselves tiny, we talk to ourselves as if we were not good enough. He observes this also about himself, but also about friends and family around him. With the song he shows himself that all of this is just a dream, and that through real selflove we can heal our hearts and live healthy. During the song, I hold my hands on my heart, keeping it safe and warm. The song culminates in the wise words of a female voice: 

“Yo me amo. Yo me libero. Yo me perdono. Yo merezco ser feliz.“

= I love myself. I liberate myself. I forgive myself. I deserve to be happy.

The song TRANCE LIFE, which is also the name of his latest album – brings us further on our immersive journey through the universe. It takes us on a trip towards the sun. In some parts of the song he stops singing and focusses on his guitar sounds, and thus creating harmonies with Totidub’s beats. “And it don’t matter how far, you’re always coming back to the same star. And it don’t matter how far, you’re always coming back to your heart. Mmmmmh, mmmmh” – this is usually the end of that song. However, at this concert, at this transformational ritual, we all created and infinite echo of mmmh. Like an interplay of question and answer, we sing that all together, losing ourselves in a collective meditation of mmmh.

Before he plays the next song Alex tells us a story, it’s a good night story that he invented for his one year old child. One day the sun woke up, but it was dark outside. And the sun was trying to make itself shine but it didn’t work. Years went of darkness went by, the sun was getting depressed. One day the sun looked on the sky full of stars and the moon was shining, admired by the sun. The moon turned to the sun and asked if everything’s okay. And the sun shared that it forgot how to shine. The moon laughs and says “are you silly? You know that this light of mine is a reflection of your light, right? So it’s impossible that you stop shining” from that moment the sun decided to sit on his throne in the sky and shine forever. This sparkling story was the foundation for the song LUNA. Totidub starts playing, Alex starts singing.

Alex reminds us that we are still on this transformative journey. “I want you to feel, very deeply, what you feel right now, and send it to the bottom of who you are.”

What I felt in that moment was a bright ray of love enlightening my soul and body. With that energy I followed along the song OUTTER SPACE and the incredibly impressing interplay of sounds the two musicians were creating together. It was not only their music but especially their positive charisma, their smiles and their eyes that filled the room with loving energy. “We love to do that. To just start to play and see what happens.”, Alex says, filled with joy from the last minutes of amazing music magic with his friend.

It goes quiet again. And with the birds and crickets chirping Alex notes that this present moment is all we have. We have an idea of the past and of the future. But this, this is the most precious gift we have, and we can only feel it.. right now. I can barely focus on his words because I get too excited to hear him singing the song he refers to, which is AHORA (“Now”). It was the first of his songs that I discovered. It was around two years ago. I remember how I was walking through the streets of Valencia, not feeling capable of stopping listening to that song. I put it on repeat. From the moment they start playing the first sounds of the song, I smiled. It simply made me happy. I dance and smile and with listening to the sounds of the song, I want to carry the feeling of that moment to all my future nows.

And sometimes Alex wonders, what is this world? He found that humans are just imagining their worlds. “It’s just a mirror of my internal world.” He calls it a superpower we all have. “Life is a miracle.”

He comes down to the audience and walks into the middle of the room. “With our spaceship we now landed back on earth, and we need to plant the seeds that make us connect with earth.”

He asks for four volunteers: “Who wants to act?”

The four people stand around him in a circle, as he tells them, they come closer. Then he animates all of us to come closer and hug each other. Through that hugging, we are all connected by energy. In the middle there is him, and there is this tunnel through which the energy enters and goes back to universe. I don’t know the people around me, but I share love with them. Alex gently invites us to enjoy this moment to the fullest, this moment of deep connection with others, of sharing energy and love. 

And thus, I come to realize, that we are all one.