I never knew how poppers smelled until the night of the Sweat Tour, a double concert featuring Charli XCX’s “Brat” and Troye Sivan’s “Something to Give Each Other.”

Alkyl nitrate, commonly known as poppers, is a drug originally used to relieve heart and chest problems but is often used recreationally to achieve a brief high.

Entering the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, swarms of teenagers and young adults crowded around, eager to enter. Some had to toss their vapes into the security bins, never to be seen again. My mom cast curious glances at the more alternative-looking attendees, adorned with piercings in places I hadn’t seen before. We were guided by staff since my mom was using a wheelchair.

I could have sworn I’d never seen so much aesthetically tacky green — even if I’d walked into a thrift store on St. Patrick’s Day. Before my mom and I knew it, the lights dimmed, and Troye Sivan appeared with his crew of well-built backup dancers. He was ready to perform songs from his new album, including “Get Me Started” and “What’s the Time Where You Are?” along with his more well-known hit “My, My, My.”

What I appreciated about this concert was that it didn’t feel like, “Oh, Troye’s here, too, I guess.” It truly felt like a shared experience for both artists. Sivan’s performances were just as captivating as Charli’s, allowing him to shine without overshadowing her.

After this bold introduction, the curtains parted to reveal Charli, skimpily dressed, joined by Shygirl as they performed the “365 (EASYFUN Remix)” together in all their indie sleaze glory. Despite being early in the show, this performance was a true highlight of the concert, with Charli’s subsequent renditions of “Von Dutch” and “360” leaving the arena in excitement as she serenaded us with her vocals and the ear-throbbing instrumentals echoing throughout.

Among the standout moments of the concert, Sivan’s performances of “In My Room” and “Dance To This” were as sexually charged as they were theatrical, featuring a king-sized bed set up right in front of the stage while he sang and gyrated with the backup dancers.

Charli’s performance of “Everything Is Romantic,” the daring hyperpop epic from Brat, felt incredibly fitting, even amid all the more energetic tracks surrounding it because of the melodramatic and almost thespian-like attributes of the song that match and contribute to the emotional extremity and vivid imagery seen throughout the album. To my side, I noticed a lesbian couple drunkenly making out to the song, which goes to show that everything really is romantic — except for when Charli spat on the floor during her raunchy performance of the “Guess” Billie Eilish remix. That wasn’t really romantic, or sanitary.

Charli also performed her deep cut, “Track 10,” from her acclaimed mixtape Pop 2, which got all the old-school Charli fans hyped. Even if you hadn’t been a fan of Charli until this era, it was clear that the concertgoers easily embraced all her eras of music, whether they were a part of them or simply appreciated the subcultures among her fans.

Despite the unity I felt during the concert, the performance wasn’t without its challenges. Given the nature of the event and the growing popularity of the Brat phenomenon, it was clear that some people were there just to film TikToks for content and left after Charli performed all her hits, while others were genuinely there to enjoy the show. Although this wasn’t a large majority, it was a vocal minority.

The bustling and chaotic atmosphere added to the overall aesthetic, but it was somewhat frustrating to deal with drunken young adult couples stumbling next to me, people forgetting their concert etiquette, and

others dancing and bumping into me and other concertgoers. Adding to the chaos were rowdy teenagers constantly going back and forth to the bathroom or grabbing drinks they probably weren’t even allowed to have, every 5-10 minutes.

Finally, both Charli and Troye performed their collaborative songs, appearing on stage together more than we had seen throughout the concert. During the encore, they performed “1999,” a nostalgic throwback to the culture of the 1990s. To cap it all off, they ended with the new “Talk Talk” remix, one of the singles from the Brat remix album, “Brat and It’s Completely Different” but Also Still Brat, harmonizing together triumphantly.

When it all came to an end and the stage went dark, it felt like a flash in the pan — everything had gone by so quickly that I started to question if all the chaos I witnessed, both on and off stage, was just a figment of my chronically online imagination, or perhaps the result of the pungent smell in the arena mixed with the strobing lights throughout the concert, giving me a sense of hallucination.

After the concert, I had nearly lost my voice from how much I’d been yelling along with the songs, and my eyes were switching between black and white due to the constant flickering that was happening during the concert. I looked at my mom, who was about as confused as ever after what she had just witnessed, and before I could even say a word, she asked, “Why did it smell like poppers?”