Concert Reviews
Vermont artist Kahan’s four-night, sold-out run of Fenway Park concerts is the most in the venue’s history.
Noah Kahan performs at Fenway Park on Tuesday, July 8, 2026. Patrick McCormack
July 9, 2026 | 9:25 AM
4 minutes to read
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Watch: Drake Maye dials up Noah Kahan at Fenway, as Gigi Perez joins in for ‘She Calls Me Back’
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Noah Kahan’s historic 4-show Fenway Park run kicks off Tuesday. Here’s everything you need to know.
In the song “Haircut,” off Noah Kahan’s new album “The Great Divide,” the artist offers some self-criticism with the line, “You grew your hair out long, now you think you’re Jesus Christ.”
It was fitting, then, that Kahan’s four-night Fenway Park concert run began with biblical rains, which pelted the Boston area Tuesday and didn’t let up during the two-and-a-half-hour show. Concert-goers dodged puddles outside the ballpark before succumbing to the deluge inside. Wearing a clear plastic poncho over her clothes, one young attendee was overheard lamenting, “I didn’t even think about wearing my actual rain jacket.”
Tuesday’s show was the first of four here promoting Kahan’s fourth studio album, and came two years after the Vermont native’s first performances at the park. Those 2024 concerts came near the end of the “Stick Season” tour, which catapulted Kahan to new levels of fame. An arduous writing process, shown in a Netflix documentary earlier this year, eventually led to the release of “The Great Divide.”
Differences between this tour and the last are easy to spot. The sets are more theatrical now, the screens bigger and sharper. During the performance of “Dial Drunk,” a song about making a phone call from jail, Kahan gets arrested and thrown into the back of a police car. On Tuesday he played “Willing and Able,” whose lyrics plead to a family member to sit down and hash things out, sitting perched on a rooftop.
Emotional availability is the key to Kahan’s music, and the way in which he connects with his audience. “Porch Light,” off the new album, is written from his mother, Lauri’s, perspective. The lyrics, “You act like we just sit up here and wait for you to reappear” are a reference to Kahan’s newfound fame. The next line, “But baby there are bills to pay and your dad’s road needs salt” is quintessential Vermont, and delivered in concert with a smile.
The contrast between the Kahan seen in the Netflix documentary “Noah Kahan: Out of Body” and the one in concert is striking. That first Kahan is pensive and unsure, about his family, his body, and his creativity. Kahan onstage is a powerhouse, swaggering and stomping his way from stage to stage, connecting with his bandmates through movement and with the audience through eye contact.
“Noah’s come such a long way in terms of performance,” drummer Marcos Valles says in the documentary. “He’s gotten way better at it.”
(Fans of Kahan’s “Live at Fenway Park” album may be relieved to know that he’s dropping fewer f-bombs onstage this year.)
Standout performances during the first two shows of Kahan’s 2026 Fenway homestand include the catchy change-anthem “Doors,” as well as “Orbiter,” which Kahan dedicated this week to his wife, Brenna, and his mother, two planets whose pull have been influential in his life. “Staying Still,” maybe the artist’s most Boston song, features the lyrics, “And I hope that Logan crumbles and gets hit by a tornado.”
Wednesday’s show was performed amid perfect summer weather and featured some substitutions from night one. Kahan broke out “Mess,” a fan favorite from the “Busyhead” album. “Lighthouse,” off the new record, made its live debut, with band members strumming intimately together on a secondary stage. Reacting to several lyrics in which he sang in falsetto, Kahan said, “Yeah I can do some Mariah Carey s***.”
“The Great Divide” tour features plenty of hits from “Stick Season” as well. The regular setlist features nightly performances of “All My Love,” “Northern Attitude,” and “Stick Season.” The highlight might be “The View Between Villages,” a powerhouse of a song about the nervous approach of returning to your hometown.
If there’s anything lost from a Kahan performance two years ago versus now, it’s his and the band’s raw, emotional feeling of I-can’t-believe-we’re-doing-this. For better mostly, the group is in sync now and looks very much like they belong on the big stage.
Noah Kahan and his band return to Fenway Park on Friday and Saturday nights.
Full setlist for Noah Kahan at Fenway Park, Boston, Tuesday, July 7, 2026:
Act 1, Main stage:
- American Cars
- Doors
- All My Love
- Deny Deny Deny
- Staying Still
Act 2, B stage:
Act 3, Main stage:
- Paul Revere
- She Calls Me Back (w/Gigi Perez)
- Dashboard
- Dial Drunk
Act 4, Roof/Main stage:
- Willing and Able
- Porch Light
Act 5, C stage:
- Orbiter
- Maine
- Paid Time Off
- All Them Horses
- The View Between Villages
Act 6, Main stage:
- Northern Attitude
- The Great Divide
- Orange Juice
- New Perspective
Encore:
- End of August
- Homesick
- Stick Season
Full setlist for Noah Kahan at Fenway Park, Boston, Wednesday, July 8, 2026:
Act 1, Main stage:
- American Cars
- Doors
- All My Love
- Deny Deny Deny
- Staying Still
Act 2, B stage:
Act 3, Main stage:
- Mess
- She Calls Me Back (w/Gigi Perez)
- Dashboard
- Dial Drunk
Act 4, Roof/Main stage:
- We Go Way Back
- Porch Light
Act 5, C stage:
- Orbiter
- Maine
- Paid Time Off
- Lighthouse
- The View Between Villages
Act 6, Main stage:
- Northern Attitude
- The Great Divide
- Orange Juice
- New Perspective
Encore:
- End of August
- Homesick
- Stick Season
Gary Dzen
Gary Dzen is deputy editor of sports and culture at Boston.com. A graduate of Bates College, he has worked at Boston Globe Media since 2005.
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