The microphones on stage facing out towards the audience make sense the moment Noah Kahan opens his mouth. The crowd start singing with him and know every single word: “You build a boat, you build a life / You lose your friends, you lose your wife / You settle in to routine / Where are you? What does it mean?”
These are remarkable times for the 26-year-old Vermonter. After signing a record deal in his teens, Kahan made a mainstream breakthrough with 2022’s Stick Season. Since then he has collaborated with Hozier (on the aforementioned opener, Northern Attitude) and been nominated for a Grammy for best new artist just hours before this gig.
But behind his success lie the years of depression and anxiety that fired his music. By airing his vulnerabilities in songs inspired by the likes of Paul Simon or Mumford & Sons, the singer-guitarist has tapped into the zeitgeist and articulated the concerns of a youngish generation. Their communal singing turns the gig into a mass catharsis.
The atmosphere, rousing tunes and grinning band belie Kahan’s raw lyrics about mental health, shame and alcoholism. The rousing Dial Drunk tells how he was arrested and asked: “Son, are you a danger to yourself?” Growing Sideways recalls a conversation with this therapist in which he “took my medication and I poured my trauma out / On some sad-eyed middle-aged man’s overpriced new leather couch”. Call Your Mom offers shared experience to someone contemplating suicide, and there are whoops of recognition when he dedicates a song to “anyone with divorced parents”.
With his giddy laugh and white overalls that make him look like he’s come from a shift in a butcher’s, Kahan is an unlikely star – but the audience adore him for it. They chant his name, pass him flowers and carry him above their heads as he crowdsurfs. “No matter how far I go, I’ll stay humble,” he insists before the beautifully tender You’re Gonna Go Far. If shows such as this are anything to go by, he’s going a long way.
• At O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester, 13 November. Then touring.
