Noah Kahan wrapped up four sold-out shows at Boston’s Fenway Park on Saturday night, taking over the city this week with his “Great Divide” tour.
Kahan is a native of Boston and a former resident of Watertown, Massachusetts. This week may have cemented his status as a hometown hero, as he played in front of more than 151,000 fans over four nights.
The singer’s love for his home is palpable, and the love his New England fans feel for him feels even stronger. Simply put, it was Kahane obsession in Boston. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has designated July 11 as Noah Kahan Day. The singer joked later in the show that he took full advantage of his big day. “I violated a lot of specialized laws,” he told the audience, noting that he went “straight to Balenciaga” after the show.
At approximately 4:45 PM on Saturday, hours before Kahan took the stage at 8 PM ET, the lines outside Fenway stretched for several blocks. An outdoor merchandise line wrapped around the corner on the main thoroughfare of Boylston Street. Restaurants in the neighborhood have lines extending into the street.
Fans traveled from all over New England and beyond to see the show in appreciation of what these Fenway shows meant to his career.
“Noah’s music means a lot to me, and I knew I wanted to see him in his element,” said Blair, a Kahan fan who traveled from Philadelphia to attend the concert. There were plenty of Ladybug looks and a slew of fans sporting hairstyles to match Kahan’s double French braids.
One minute before Kahan appeared, a countdown began on the screen of the intricately designed stage. The singer turned the space into a home, using on-stage screens to plant fans within the Upper Valley, the New Hampshire and Vermont region from which Kahan hails. He burst through the front door of the house and made his way to the front porch to start the show with “American Cars” and “Doors” from his recently released album, The great division.
Officially certified platinum by the RIAA, according to a press release, the album was one of the biggest debuts on the charts this year, amassing 389,000 equivalent album units in its first week and earning the singer a No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200.
For over two hours, Kahan used every inch of the stage to play songs 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 being “arrested” on stage, and sang the song on the hood of a car as well as inside the car brought on stage. Both “Northern Stand” and “Homesick” clearly represent New England, and Kahan told the audience during the first film that it was “for us.” Fans were screaming as they sang the latter’s lyrics “I’m mean because I grew up in New England.”
Kahan dedicated “Forever” to Zoza Bean, a teenager who was battling cancer and who attended Kahan’s previous race at Fenway in 2024 during a bucket-list trip. She died last year. “I miss her,” Kahan told the crowd. He also urged those in attendance to think about the person they’ve lost before launching into “Carlo’s Song” in honor of his late friend.
The Great Divide Tour taking place at Fenway officially makes Kahan the first artist to headline four sold-out shows at the stadium. The singer’s mother, Lori Berkenkamp, surprised him with a video in which she told him how proud she was of him and told him he had been inducted into the Fenway Music Hall of Fame. He joins Billy Joel, Paul McCartney and Zac Brown Band.
As expected, Kahan ended the evening with an extended version of his hit song “Stick Season.” The performance included a large-scale fireworks display as the singer said goodnight, a magical end to a show by an artist in his home sphere, comfortably at his peak.
