Messed!Up
If you think that just one weekend’s worth of loud music can’t have a major impact on your hearing, then it’s time to think again. And it’s time to think more seriously about it at this point in time because the festival season is about to start! Here are a few words from a grumpy old festivalgoer making this mistake for many years thus having 45% hearing loss on his right ear and 10% on the left. and always asking “What did you say?”.
I have stayed in Hamburg, Germany, for almost eight months and attend at least two concerts a week, and I learned quite quickly that the music life in Hamburg is amazing. Germans are in general very friendly and people have been buying me quite many beers from time to time just adding to my impression of their friendliness. However, I’ve also learned that they like their music loud and really don’t care if they end up half deaf in the future.
Growing up with the Swedish club scene involves being taught about taking care of your hearing. I didn’t for many years and need to pay the price for it today but the last 15-20 years I’ve always used earplugs at concerts and festivals, very often specially made for my ear canals.
Although Germans have bought me too many beers the last eight months and are way too kind to other people, they need to learn to be kind to themselves and learn to use earplugs at concerts. To illustrate; a few weeks ago we were invited for a lovely interview and evening with A Place To Bury Strangers, the kings (now with one added queen) of noise rock. It’s fair to say that APTBS plays music at a completely different level in the sonic spectrum and has fittingly been hailed as the loudest band in New York.
The point is that rarely anyone used earplugs, save for me and the photographer, and when the feedback signal sounded as most – APTBS’ music is based on noisy feedback signals – people had to stand with fingers in their ears – stupid, isn’t it?
High-decibel music blasting at big concert venues is a known cause of short-term hearing loss. Although concerts rarely reach over the upper limit of 115dB – they need to have an average of 100dB – lower levels of exposure can be enough. A paper by Zhao et al. (2010) concludes that sustained sounds of 90 decibels or more may be enough to cause permanent hearing damage and adds that “loud noise exposure can also cause an individual to develop a constant ringing in the ears, called tinnitus, which in many cases never goes away”.
Now, fortunately protecting your hearing is an easy thing to do; the simplest step to take is to wear ear protection during the concert. However, the problem may be even bigger when you drink alcohol (yeah, should I be happy for the beers you bought me, Germans!?). In fact, drinking makes it worse since drunk concertgoers actually move closer to loudspeakers.
A study by Kraaijenga et al (2018) demonstrate the behavior-induced hearing loss problem. In the study concertgoers having an average of four drinks during a concert too easily rejected earplug use, and the more inebriated they became, the more likely they were to get closer to high-decibel speakers. People seem to get more stupid with alcohol!
I know what your first thought is: it’s better to skip alcohol when going to concerts and festivals but that would be to go beyond the point of sanity (and I want Germans to buy me more beer). It’s better to raise the awareness that you become completely stupid with alcohol use – and that not only concerns concerts and festival. You become stupid in general and may do even more stupid things than skip your ear protection, just like the dude who peed in a corner of an unnamed club in Hamburg during a concert because he couldn’t find his way to the toilet.
Our advice is much simpler. First, be aware of the problems and watch older dudes at the concert – they usually use ear protection and can serve as role models. Very often they started using them too late themselves and try to save the last possibilities of hearing. Second, buy a set of cheap ones in the beginning. You don’t need the expensive ear canal adapted earplugs, especially if you plan to have a few beers and will lose them somewhere. It’s not fun to wake up being reminded of that you dropped 50€ earplugs on top of your hangover the next day. The cheap ones work out really good and usually come in sets of ten. Third, if you’re at a festival, have a break from loud music between concerts. This is the easiest way to avoid hearing loss. Sustained exposure to high decibels is much more damaging to your ears than the occasional exposure to these sounds. This is where beer breaks will help you out. But hey, don’t drink yourself to the level of brainlessness that you move closer to the loudspeakers.
Remember, it’s all about having an opportunity to enjoy music for another forty years of your life. You don’t want to skip out on Roskilde Festival 2030 just because you can’t hear, ey?
