“A Metalheads Guide To Hangovers” Summer Festival Edition
Written By Caine Blackthorn
Welcome to the ultimate Metalhead Hangover Guide because post festival recovery is a full contact sport. Hangovers. Sunburns. Existential dread. Post Festival Recovery for the Riff Ravaged, hungover and Sun Scorched. We have your ultimate metalhead hangover guide. Let’s unpack the damage.
Ah, the day after a metal festival. That sacred hangover of the soul when your ears are ringing, your legs feel like they moshed through wet concrete, and your liver’s writing its resignation letter. You survived the circle pits, the mystery meat, and that one guy doing mud angels. But now the amps are silent, the field is empty, and your body feels like it got dropkicked by Daniel LaRusso. Welcome to the real headliner, the aftermath. This is your metalhead hangover guide to re entering society, rehydrating your soul, and facing your laundry pile like a true warrior.
Muscle Carnage
Your legs feel like they got trampled in a stampede. Every step is a reminder that headbanging, beer runs and sprinting to the porta potty at 2am should come with concierge chiropractic services. You’re now googling “festival injury insurance.”
Headbanging Neck Whiplash
You thought you were in a Slipknot video, windmilling like your life depended on it. Now it’s Monday, and you’re stuck doing the full body swivel just to check your blind spot. Forget yoga, your new spiritual practice is screaming in agony every time you try to look down at your phone. Want relief? Congrats, you’re about to discover the magical world of icy hot. Neck braces? Not just for car accidents anymore, now they’re a fashion statement post pit.
Mysterious Contacts
You open your phone and see numbers you don’t recognize, labeled things like Battle Vest Brad, Corpse Paint Guy, and Spicy Tent Girl. Did you meet a new best friend? A future ex? Or did you drunkenly give your number to a guy dressed as a medieval goat? Who knows. Festival fog is real.
You Will Use Close Captioning On Everything
Congrats, you survived the festival! Unfortunately, your hearing didn’t. Metal festivals don’t just melt faces, they melt the tiny hair cells in your ears. Three days of 100+ dB brutality resulted in an industrial strength wax removal service with a side of permanent hearing damage. Your hearing’s gone on a permanent stage dive and now every word sounds like doom metal under water. Festival pro tip: If the ringing in your ears stops, you’re dead. If it doesn’t stop, congrats, you just scored the VIP pass to the tinnitus afterparty.
WHAT?! The National Anthem of Metal Festivals
Metalhead small talk after a festival is just ‘WHAT?!’ on repeat. Forget lyrics, the most commonly shouted word at any metal festival is ‘WHAT?!’ followed by aggressive nodding and a thumbs up. If you’re lucky, you’ll eventually decode it as I had a blast.
Tent Horror Stories: Welcome to the Thunderdome
“If your tent survived three days of rain, wind, beer floods, and your neighbor, Chainsaw Dave who thinks deodorant is a government conspiracy, congratulations, you’ve unlocked Survival Mode Metal Edition and basically leveled up in life. Bonus points if your tent isn’t now a permanent art installation in the mud pit.
Lost and Found? More Like Lost and Gone Forever
Lost your battle vest in the pit? Say goodbye, it now belongs to Merch Marauder Max, the unofficial head of the scavenger warriors that go to metal festivals hunting for free stuff. He’s probably wearing it proudly while double fisting warm beers and telling strangers, ‘It chose me.’ Pro tip: At metal fests, ‘lost and found’ is just a polite way of saying ‘gone to Valhalla.’
That One Riff You’ll Never Find Again
You’re haunted by that one brain melting riff that played during a set you half remember. You tried to find it, but all your phone picked up was 50,000 people screaming. Now you’re humming it to every metalhead you know, praying someone knows it before it becomes your personal cursed earworm.
The Existential Void
You survived. You came. You saw the headliner at 2 a.m. in a thunderstorm.
Now you’re back home, staring at your laundry pile and wondering if real life is just a slow breakdown between festivals. Pro tip: Listen to doom metal while folding your band tees. It helps.
What to Do with Your Filthy Clothes
DO NOT open that bag in the house.
Treat your laundry like nuclear waste.
Accept that your boots are now part of the Earth.
The Sacred Shower of Purification
You haven’t been clean since Day 1. That’s not eyeliner it’s trauma.
Let the water run black as you watch the filth leaving your soul. Consider burning your socks. They smell like a crime scene.
Reacclimating to Civilian Life
The Post Fest Void
You’ve returned from Valhalla… to emails, dishes, and the harsh fluorescent lights of reality.
Do not panic. This is a normal side effect of no longer being screamed at by Tom Araya. Solution: Listen to doom metal while sorting your merch. It eases the pain and Stop yelling “SLAAAYERRRR” in grocery stores. No one wants to hear you compare your dentist’s drill to Meshuggah.
Your neighbors do not understand corpse paint.
Hydration & Recovery
Your liver filed a complaint with HR.
Chug coconut water like it’s the elixir of immortality. Lay off the junk food for a week. Your stomach deserves peace.
Emotional Support Playlist
Create a gentle comedown playlist:
Include Type O Negative, Alcest And maybe one Sleep song to nap to.
Avoid anything that makes you want to crowd surf over your diningroom table.
The Void: Accepting the Festival Is Over
The amps are silent. The field is empty. You’re home… and everything smells like Febreze and post festival depression. Yes thats really a thing.
This stage of grief is known as “post-pit withdrawal.” Recommended treatment: watch YouTube videos of the sets you saw. Cry a little. Avoid social media unless you’re prepared to see photos of yourself passed out next to a porta potty.
Reintroduction to Society
It’s time to speak to people who aren’t screaming lyrics into your face.
Practice sentences like, “No, I don’t always dress like this,” and “Yes, that’s a real band name.” Stop headbanging at stoplights. It alarms civilians.
Festival Flashbacks & Food Cravings
You may suddenly crave gas station hotdogs and vodka popsicles. Resist.
Eat something green. No, not a moldy burrito. Real vegetables.
Prepare one ceremonial “meat stick of regret” if necessary, but light incense first.
Dealing With the Physical Aftermath
Your back hurts. Your knees hurt. Your soul might be dislocated.
Drink electrolytes. Sleep 12 hours. Pretend you don’t need Advil.
Consider yoga or mild stretching, but scream like a banshee while doing it to stay in character.
Rebooting Your Brain After Blast Beats
It’s okay if your inner monologue still sounds like Randy Blythe.
Ease back into normal speech slowly. Try, “Good morning” instead of “ARE YOU READY TO DIE?!”
Let Thy Body Rest
Metalheads don’t sleep at festivals. They sleep after them. For a week.
Blanket burrito. Neck pillow. Silence or a Sleep album on loop.
Tell everyone you’re “in recovery.” They don’t need to know from what.
The Post Festival Debrief
Unpack your bag. Wash your battle vest. Air out your boots before they achieve sentience. Frame your wristbands like war medals. Journal the chaos before your foggy brain forgets that time you saw Abbath swordfight a trash can.
Reflect, Reset, Repeat
You may feel empty now that it’s over.
But fear not metalhead, there will be another fest, another pit, another mystery burrito. Until then, hydrate, listen to Bathory in the shower, and sharpen your horns.
Final Note: You Did It, You Filthy Legend You faced the mosh, the mud, the meat stick… and lived to scream another day. This guide may not fix your sunburn, but it will remind you that metalheads don’t fade, we just slowly decompress to the sound of Black Sabbath. Bookmark this Metalhead Hangover Guide for every festival season.
Check out our feature Metal Festival Survival Guide Because Corpse Paint in not SPF 59
See what the stars have in store for you. Check out Metalhead Horoscopes
Check out Metal Lair’s weekly feature Seven Deadly Songs
Check out Metal Lair’s new weekly series, Deep Cuts, Metals Hidden Gems
“METAL FESTIVAL SURVIVAL GUIDE: Because Corpse Paint Is Not SPF 50”
