P-R Music Column: Staying safe important at concerts, festivals

It feels like you’ve died and gone to heaven, being at a great concert.

The bright lights, angelic music and everyone coming together as one.

But, take it from me, try your best not to make that happen for real.

A moment I had earlier this month made me seriously rethink how I go about staying safe when I go to live music events in the future.

On the first weekend of this month, I had the pleasure of heading north to Montreal for the 2024 Osheaga Music and Arts Festival.

While there, I had the chance to cross some of the biggest names off my to-see list including Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins, Denzel Curry and the Linda Lindas.

But as I was heading from stage to stage, jockeying for the best spot, a little video game health meter was quietly ticking down inside me.

There were signs, of course. Ones that, in hindsight, read like foreshadowing in a movie.

See, the temperature that day was pushing 90 degrees F and the humidity wasn’t much lower.

All throughout the day, between each song, singer after singer made sure to tell people to drink water.

Well, that and saying how damn hot it was out.

I remember even rapper Denzel Curry, gangster as he is, popped backstage to grab an extra bottle of water midway through his set.

I, on the other hand, did not.

That’s not to say I didn’t drink any water at all that day. By the end of the day, my sports bag was full of about six different empty bottles of water, sodas and juices.

But it wasn’t enough. Especially since I downed those around 5 p.m. and then went about three hours without another sip.

It honestly sounds even worse when I write it out like that, but it was the truth. You get so caught up not only in the music but in the music festival game of seeing if you can inch your way to the front row.

And, of course, once you’re up there, you don’t want to give up that prime spot for something like going back for food and drinks.

That’s not to say there’s no staff around the crowd handing out bottles of water. There were, and hats off to them. But when you’re about midway in the crowd, you can’t exactly shout six rows over for a bottle.

And that’s where I found myself midway through the Smashing Pumpkins set when it suddenly hit me: I didn’t feel so good.

Fortunately, I was able to push my way over to the mid-crowd barrier where I slumped over.

One thing I’ll always remember though is how, even in the middle of a great performance, the group of people right around me all bent down to check on me.

One even offered me a Cliff bar, though I found that I couldn’t bring myself to swallow it.

It’s just yet another reason I love going to concerts: the sense that people of all stripes can come together, set their differences aside and just be a community of music lovers looking out for one another.

But naturally, people then flagged down the professionals and a trio of staff members hopped the fence to help me.

They managed to hoist me over the fencing to a side area where they gave me water, poured water on my back, massaged my shoulders and fanned me with a large fan.

The nauseous and light-headed feeling began to pass as I sat there and started to get my wits back about me.

But in that moment when I first slumped down, my head growing light and feeling like I wanted to vomit, it was terrifying.

Now, it probably doesn’t help that I’m not the healthiest person in the world. But just moments before my own crisis, I’d seen the emergency staff give the same treatment to a young girl looking about half my age and weight.

I say that to drive home the point of this column: it could happen to you.

I was absolutely, 100% the kind of person who thought heat exhaustion at a concert was something that happened to other people.

It’s funny that I remember sitting on the ground and thinking: “Oh no…this is really happening.“

So in any warm weather situation, make sure and plan ahead, eat and drink consistently through the day and take breaks when you need to.

And don’t wait until you start to feel really off, because your body’s already been in the orange before you even really feel it. Don’t let it hit the red.

And lastly, once again, look out for each other and help or get help if you see someone in need.

Stay safe, and keep on rockin’ in the free world.

Have you ever had any concert close calls? Email Ben Rowe at [email protected] with your thoughts and takeaways on this topic.