Noah Kahan closed out a record-breaking four sold-out shows at Boston’s Fenway Park Saturday night, taking over the city this week with his Great Divide tour.
A Vermont native and former Watertown, Massachusetts resident, Boston is Kahan’s hometown show. And this week just might have cemented his already-established hometown hero status, playing to over 151,000 fans over the course of four nights.
The singer’s love for his home is palpable, and the love that his New England fans feel for him seems even more intense. Simply put, it was Kahan-mania in Boston. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts named July 11 Noah Kahan day. The singer joked later into the show that he’s been taking full advantage of his big day. “I’ve been breaking a lot of niche laws,” he told the crowd, teasing that he was headed “straight to Balenciaga” after the show.
Around 4:45 p.m. Saturday, hours before Kahan took the stage promptly at 8 p.m. eastern time, lines outside Fenway spanned several street blocks. An outside merch line wrapped around the corner onto the main drag of Boylston Street. Restaurants in the neighborhood had lines trailing into the street.
Fans traveled from around New England and further to catch the show in acknowledgement of what these Fenway shows mean in his career.
“Noah’s music has meant a lot to me, and I knew I wanted to see him in his element,” said Blair, a fan of Kahan’s who traveled from Philadelphia for the concert. There were plenty of ladybug looks and a slew of fans with hairstyles matching Kahan’s double French braids.
With a minute left before Kahan came on, a countdown started on the screen of the intricately designed stage. The singer transformed the space into a house, utilizing the screens onstage to plant fans inside the Upper Valley, the area of New Hampshire and Vermont that Kahan hails from. He pushed through the front door of the house and made his way onto the front porch to kick off the show with “American Cars” and “Doors” from his recently released album, The Great Divide.
The album has officially been certified platinum by the RIAA, according to a press release, and the album had one of the biggest debuts on the charts this year, raking in 389,000 equivalent album units in its first week and earning the singer his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
For over two hours, Kahan used up every inch of the stage to play songs both old and new, with highlights including “Forever,” “Orbiter,” “Dial Drunk,” “Dan,” “Northern Attitude,” “Carlo’s Song,” and of course, “Homesick.”
Kahan performed “Dial Drunk” while he was “getting arrested” onstage, singing the song on the hood of as well as inside a car brought on stage. Both “Northern Attitude” and “Homesick” are distinctly New England, and Kahan told the crowd during the former that it was “for us.” Fans were scream-singing the latter’s lyric “I’m mean because I grew up in New England.”
Kahan dedicated “Forever” to Zuza Beine, a teen who’d been battling cancer and attended Kahan’s previous Fenway run in 2024 during a bucket list trip. She passed away last year. “I miss her,” Kahan told the crowd. He also urged those in attendance to think about the person they’re missing before he launched into “Carlo’s Song,” in honor of his late friend.
The Great Divide tour run at Fenway officially makes Kahan the first artist to ever headline four sold-out shows at the stadium. The singer’s mother, Lauri Berkenkamp, surprised him with a video letting him know how proud she was of him and to share that he’s been inducted into the Fenway Music Hall of Fame. He joins Billy Joel, Paul McCartney and Zac Brown Band.
As expected, Kahan closed the night out with an extended version his breakthrough hit “Stick Season.” The performance featured an extensive firework show as the singer said goodnight, a magical end to a showcase of an artist on his home field, comfortably in his prime.
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