Kolkata: The first among several tell-tale signs of Bollywood singer KK’s unease in his last stage performance at south Kolkata’s Nazrul Mancha on Tuesday was something uncharacteristic — he hurried offstage without singing ‘Pal’, his signature show-ender. But no one caught the signals.

Krishnakumar Kunnath, known by his stage name KK, died of a massive cardiac arrest an hour after the concert, where the crowd count was nearly three times the auditorium’s capacity. His death triggered a debate on Wednesday on the level of physical stress performers suffer in overcrowded, stifling venues.

The 53-year-old did not finish his 20-song set with ‘Pal’, leaving in a hurry after the 19th. His fans always expect ‘Pal’— ending with the line “Hum rahe ya na rahe, yaad ayenge ye pal” — to be the electrifying closing part.

Second among the signs was that he was sweating profusely and requested for a drone camera to fly over his head, so that he could get some air from its rotors. Third, he kept asking the organisers to switch off the spotlights trained on him, probably because he could not bear the heat. Fourth — and this came to light only on Wednesday — was cops finding several sachets of antacid in his hotel room, an indicator that the singer had felt some uneasiness in his chest.

Cops also learnt that the singer had complained of “joint pain” on Monday night.

But as long as he was on stage, it was an energetic performance and he spent every ounce of his energy on it — jumping, blowing kisses, shaking hands with fans, posing for selfies and goading the audience to sing along. KK was given a gun salute at Rabindra Sadan by the Bengal government on Wednesday in the presence of CM Mamata Banerjee and the singer’s family—wife Jyothy, son Nakul and daughter Tamara.