Concert Reviews

Review & setlist: Noah Kahan’s New England is forever

Vermont native Noah Kahan, whose songs are peppered with local references, easily won over the crowd at Thursday's sold-out show at Fenway Park, the first of two.

By Gary Dzen

July 19, 2024

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It’s tough to summarize all of who Noah Kahan is or what he means to New England in this moment, but here’s a shot.

Kahan is a son of Vermont, mental health advocate, dog-lover, Grammy nominated singer-songwriter, frequent musical collaborator, incessant tourer, and bad baseball-thrower, in some order.

He’s from all around here. Kahan, 27, grew up in Strafford, Vt. and attended high school in Hanover, N.H. For a while he lived in Watertown. He released his debut album, Busyhead, in 2019, and his latest album, Stick Season, marked his pivot from pop to folk music, with the title track having been streamed more than a billion times. 

Kahan references his upbringing constantly in his work, but he’s not overly reverential about the history or geography. On the song “Homesick,” he laments being tired of “roads named after high school friends’ grandfathers.” At a show earlier this spring, in Asheville, North Carolina, he introduced “Paul Revere,” on paper a tribute to New England lore, by saying, “People always ask me why I wrote this, but I don’t give a f*** about Paul Revere.” 

The 35,000-plus at Fenway Park Thursday night for the first of Kahan’s two sold-out shows know all of this and more, because no one knows Kahan more than his most ardent fans, and he’s constantly sharing himself with them through social media. It’s that sharing — of emotions, of growing up here or in any small town — that has allowed Kahan’s music to resonate so widely.

Fenway’s opener, “Dial Drunk,” is the catchy, radio-friendly tune he’s been starting most shows with. If you’re trying to explain Kahan’s appeal in one song, though, you could choose “New Perspective,” a song he said this week that he wrote when “just totally defeated by the weight of my low self esteem.” It’s a song that mentions “rednecks” getting drunk and “attention deficit kids,” but to hear Kahan’s mostly teenage fans belt out, “The intersection’s got a Target/And they’re calling it downtown” is to realize that the darkness in and around us can sometimes be uplifting, if we view it differently.

Other highlights from Kahan’s two-hour Fenway show include “Maine,” which he played during a stripped-down acoustic set, and “Your Needs, My Needs,” whose lyrics “bitter brained/always drunk/rail thin/Zoloft,” when sung live, will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. “Orange Juice,” a song about getting sober and coming back changed to those you love, is devastating.

Dark themes work for Kahan because they seem to come from an honest place, and because he’s in on your sad boy jokes. Early in the show Thursday, Kahan asks the crowd if they’re ready to hear some depressing music, adding, “I want you to leave a little worse than when you came in.” A product of divorce, Kahan said that both his parents were in attendance at Fenway. He told those in the audience whose parents were divorced, too, that it wasn’t their fault, before adding, “It’s your dad’s fault.”

Kahan provides plenty of upbeat moments too. “Northern Attitude,” a song about New Englanders and their infamously cold demeanors, featured a refreshing blast of confetti snow. For “Everywhere, Everything,” a love song about decomposing hand-in-hand with your sweetheart, Kahan was joined by artist Gracie Abrams. The raucous “Homesick” provided the show’s most cathartic moment, with the crowd singing, “I’m mean because I grew up in New England” and feeling every word.

Kahan wore a uniform reminiscent of the Red Sox’ home whites Thursday, with “NK” stitched on the front and “Forever” on the back. In one especially Fenway moment, Kahan appeared on a platform atop the Green Monster for two songs, including the Jason Isbell track “If We Were Vampires,” for which he was joined by The Lumineers.

It’s hard to think of another artist who’s made a more meteoric rise than Kahan, who mentioned during the show that he’s played every venue in Boston, including the Brighton Music Hall, where they spelled his name wrong on the marquee. Just last year, Kahan says he and his manager sat at a bar on Lansdowne Street and set a goal of playing Fenway within a decade. That he’s here now, headlining Fenway, is an accomplishment not lost on the artist himself.

Setlist: Noah Kahan’s ‘We’ll All Be Here Forever’ tour at Fenway Park, July 18, 2024

• Dial Drunk
• New Perspective
• Everywhere, Everything (with Gracie Abrams)
• False Confidence
• Forever
• Pain Is Cold Water
• Maine
• Godlight
• Paul Revere
• All My Love
• Your Needs, My Needs
• The Great Divide
• You’re Gonna Go Far
• Homesick

B-Stage (The Green Monster):

• Growing Sideways
• If We Were Vampires (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit cover, with The Lumineers)

Main Stage:

• She Calls Me Back
• No Complaints
• Orange Juice
• Northern Attitude

Encore:

• Mess
• The View Between Villages
• Stick Season

Noah Kahan returns to Fenway Park Friday night.