What happened at the metal show?

March 21, 2024 4:51 PM

I went to a metal show and it was sweaty, as usual, but suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wore earplugs and was about three rows of people from the band. The nausea came, then I started gagging and felt like I was going to pass out. Legs went soft, room spun around me.

I needed twenty minutes to sit it out outside. Was that anxiety? Mine has never presented like that, and nothing that night could have been a trigger.

What happened? I had a couple of drinks but nowhere to inebriation. I also thought about the possibility of spiking but had brought my drinks from home. There was also no mosh so it wasn’t overexertion. What the hell happened?

posted by antihistameme to Human Relations (13 answers total)

What was the speaker stack like? How long has it been since you were at a show like that? What style of metal was it?

Powerful bass thumping from giant speakers can rattle your diaphragm, and/or big chunks of your thoracic and abdominal cavities. This can cause nausea and discomfort. For me it depends on the acoustics of the venue and even what root notes are hit a lot. Resonant frequencies and whatnot. Suffice it to say I have learned to pay attention to my torso vibration at really loud shows, even with plenty of hearing protection. Sometimes just moving a few feet left or right can help a lot.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:58 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: It was melodic death metal. I go to these things a couple times a year and hardcore techno shows regularly. I like to think I’m not a complete noob.

Now that I think of it, the bass was very heavy and I could hear/feel it crystal clear, even with the earplugs in. Interesting observation!
posted by antihistameme at 5:21 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Sounds like vertigo symptoms, which can be brought on by inner ear complaints.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:26 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

I dehydrate easily (even when I drink a lot of water) and that sounds like dehydration to me. It can be sudden, especially if I get hot (it doesn't have to be overly hot).

(I've definitely had experiences where I was fine until my body was just like "nope!!")

You know your body more than I do, but I've definitely experienced that in those sort of situations and yeah, just needed water/etc.
posted by edencosmic at 5:48 PM on March 21 [5 favorites]

Those symptoms remind me of what I'm pretty sure was a reactive hypoglycemia episode at a local bar & grill after a carby meal plus sugary lemonades plus half a beer.
Suddenly sweaty & woozy, could barely walk. Had to be helped to the door and our car brought around so I didn't have to make it across the parking lot, but then 20 minutes later pretty much fine.
Had been eating a not great diet for a while, after that cut way back on sugar & simple carbs and it hasn't happened again.
posted by superna at 6:25 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Dehydration

Overheating

Lack of oxygen in the vicinity/not fresh air for club goer reasons
posted by Jacen at 7:08 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

This is what a hypoglycemic reaction does for me. I was diagnosed as a kid and had different symptoms then; as an adult it comes on fast and just like you describe. It's pretty rare these days, but it can come out of nowhere. I once spent an uncomfortable crowded train ride home just praying I wouldn't pass out on the train itself.

But I also agree with Saltysalticid about the bass at concerts. I've had some major gastrointestinal distress at shows with certain kinds of bass, and this came on with middle age. I'd been to tons of all kinds of shows all my life without issue before, but I think our bodies just get sensitive in weird ways as we get older.

I assume this was probably a one-off issue, but maybe next time bring a drink with electrolytes just in case. If it does happen again, might be time to get some labs done.
posted by Molasses808 at 8:43 PM on March 21

I think a panic attack is another straightforward possibility here. They don't always have a trigger and, well, you have your first one when you have it. "Felt like I couldn't breathe" is a classic of the panic attack canon, as is nausea. But look into the medical stuff!
posted by less-of-course at 9:40 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Sounds a lot like dehydration and overheating to me. I've had a similar thing happen to me in a crowd once or twice and it's shocking how awful dehydration can make you feel, and how suddenly.
posted by mekily at 10:09 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

The speakers at an IMAX showing of Prometheus combines with a weird viewing angle and emotionally charged content triggered a panic attack in me, with the symptoms being completely new/different.
posted by Iteki at 2:12 AM on March 22

It could be that scourge of soldiers, wedding attendants, and marching bands/choirs: postural or orthostatic syncope, also known as "fainting from standing with your knees locked for too long so your blood pressure plummets suddenly".

My partner is a stress-fainter, which is vasovagal syncope. It's also in part a result of tensing up your core so hard your blood pressure drops. Fainting is not like swooning in the movies; when he goes down (which may or may not include puking along the way, or incoherent noises that I know mean "I might yark"), and even if we just have a close call and we get him to a quiet chair in time it's anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour before he is really himself again.

And you had lots of contributing factors to either form of fainting: loud, overwhelming, hot, in a crowd, excited, standing, plus whatever your state of hydration/electrolytes and blood sugar was.

I won't say it can't be a panic attack, but normally those do not self-resolve in 20 minutes and are generally characterized by a feeling in the chest that is difficult to dismiss as "not a heart attack". If you didn't think you were maybe dying, it probably wasn't that.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:35 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]

nthing dehydration. Alcohol is _not_ hydration. I'm in a skit comedy troupe that performs in a non-air-conditioned old warehouse and we have to warn our performers about this all the time.
posted by TimHare at 8:05 AM on March 22

Anecdotally, this happened to me at a My Morning Jacket show back in 2006. I hadn't eaten anything since lunch, but I did drink a Fuze White Tea (RIP) before the show, which I remember clearly because I puked it up a third of the way through MMJ's set. Then I got lightheaded, went completely blind for 5–10 minutes, and had to sit down in the back and missed my favorite song. I didn't have anything alcoholic to drink.

I'm sure my blood pressure was through the floor and that's the main cause, but I remember the trigger for the nausea was feeling the bass reverberating up through my sternum. I was standing fairly close to the stack. At subsequent shows I've felt a little nauseated when the bass is too bassy, but I can't say how much of that was psychosomatic.
posted by bursting with fruit flavor at 11:45 AM on March 22