My life is largely spent counting down the days until my next concert, so it’d take a lot for something to happen that stops me from going. (Unless of course it gets canceled for some reason or another.) Nobody likes getting sick. When you’re sick, all you want to do is stay home and sleep. That wasn’t an option for me though when I got sick the day before I had two concert days in a row back in June 2018.

Some people may back out of going to a concert after getting sick, but I didn’t let it stop me. I started feeling sick the day before I was going to drive two hours to the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA to see the Kiss Concert sponsored by the radio station Kiss108. If you’ve never been to a radio-sponsored show, it’s kind of like a festival with multiple acts that usually starts around two or three in the afternoon and goes all night. At this Kiss108 concert, some of the acts included 5 Seconds of Summer, Alessia Cara, Backstreet Boys, Dua Lipa, and Bebe Rexha. 

I had your classic cold: sore throat, runny nose, feeling of overall tiredness. I remember bringing a bottle of DayQuil with me in my car. Despite being sick, I made the mistake of still singing along and screaming like I would at any other concert. On the car ride home I barely had a voice, but that didn’t stop me from talking the whole time. The consequences would have been slightly more manageable if I didn’t have another concert the very next day. 

I woke up the next morning and did not have a voice at all, still had cold symptoms, and was so nauseous I couldn’t eat anything. I then got in a car and rode 2.5 hours to TD Garden in Boston to see Harry Styles. Thankfully I didn’t have to drive, but trying not to talk the entire day was hard.

To make things more unusual, our seats were in the last row in one of the highest sections. There was a brick wall right behind us and I felt like I was going to fall because the section was so steep. I had never been that high up before and I was kind of freaking out about it, until the concert actually started and I couldn’t really notice it that much anymore. Despite not having a voice, I still tried to sing along—emphasis on tried.

It’s definitely a weird experience being sick at a concert. (Side note: I’ve also been sick while in Disney World so maybe the universe and my immune system are just against me?) I didn’t want to ruin my days but that meant neglecting my health, so it actually made it worse in the long run. It’s true what people say though, about concerts being a place where you can forget everything else that’s going on. During those two shows, there were times when I forgot all about being sick and was just lost in the music. 

I don’t know if I would suggest pushing through it if you happen to get sick on a day you have tickets to a concert. I guess it depends on how severe your sickness is, how passionate you are about going to the concert, and how willing you are to possibly lose the money you spent if you can’t sell your ticket. I hope no one finds themself in that position. Even though it wasn’t the best being sick at two concerts in a row, it was most definitely worth it.