On June 11, Noah Kahan will kick off the fully sold–out, “The Great Divide Tour” in Orlando, FL., with Gigi Perez as the opener. In later shows, Annabelle Dinda will accompany Kahan and Perez as an additional opener. The tour will have 31 shows throughout the United States, wrapping up on Aug. 31 at the T-Mobile Park in Seattle. This tour will feature music from Kahan’s album “The Great Divide,” which releases on April 24. Most of the tour locations are in stadiums, including Fenway Park, where he has recorded several live songs.
Kahan is a 29–year–old singer-songwriter from Vermont. His music captures deep pain and emotion through a folk-pop and New England inspired style. Kahan’s first single, “Young Blood,” was released in January of 2017, and became the fourth track on his 2019 debut album “Busyhead.” In 2020, Kahan began teasing his unreleased song “Stick Season” on TikTok, where it began to gain popularity. “Stick Season” was released in 2022 on a 14-song album of the same title.
As with many major artists, getting concert tickets can be a difficult and expensive process. Some refer to getting tickets via Ticketmaster — a global company that manages ticket sales and management — as surviving or losing the “Ticketmaster war.” In the past, there have been issues with Ticketmaster during ticket sales, such as glitches and the website crashing during sales of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.” These issues are due to competition between millions of fans, scalpers, and bots. Scalpers are people who buy tickets for high-demand events with the intention of reselling the tickets for a higher price. Ticket bots are similar; they are automated software programs designed to go through forms and payments to secure hundreds of tickets at a time, as well as slip through security and ticket limits. Kahan saw this issue and decided to ensure real fans were getting tickets. According to NBC10 Boston, in some cases, fans need to upload proof of identity in order to purchase tickets. Kahan acknowledges that Ticketmaster is secure, and the purpose of this identification is for real fans to get access to tickets.
He also requires fans who want to resell their tickets to be sold at the Ticketmaster Face Value Exchange — where fans can sell their tickets to others via Ticketmaster at their original price — as well as tickets being nontransferable. This ensures tickets aren’t being resold through different sites for a higherprice.
Kahan was not only dedicated to real fans getting tickets, but also to ensuring that ticket prices were reasonable. “[What] I really appreciate about getting tickets for his shows is that the price you see is the price you pay, there are no hidden fees, and you can’t resell tickets for more than you bought them for,” says Rebecca Blackwood, a Kahan fan. “I wish more [artists] would look out for their fans in the same way.”
Many fans admire Kahan’s closeness, honesty, and vulnerability, primarily through his Instagram account. “His fanbase really appreciates lyricism and emotion,” says Zoë Knighten, a sophomore at West Linn High School who has been a fan of Kahan’s for the past four years. Knighten admires the memories his music can bring her back to, as well as thinking about the future. “I connect with ‘You’re Gonna Go Far’ because I have watched people grow up and leave as I know I will have to soon,” she says.
Kahan’s music can connect with fans on an emotional level in many ways. Common themes throughout his songs are mental health struggles, trauma, small-town nostalgia, losing friends, faith, and self-growth. “Even if the song is about something I’ve never personally experienced, the experience of those emotions is universal,” says Blackwood. This shows how there is safety for fans in knowing the universality of these feelings and listening to powerful music in order to get through them.
Kahan’s new documentary “Noah Kahan: Out of Body” will be available for streaming on Netflix on April 13. “It kind of captured like a year and a half of my life being on the tour for ‘Stick Season’ and just how ‘Stick Season’ affected my life, my family’s life,” Kahan said in an interview with Variety Magazine. He explained how this documentary shows a very vulnerable side of him, and how he hasn’t really expressed himself so honestly other than through music. Kahan appreciates his fans giving him a space to experience himself this way and finds it important to share this film with his fans and the public. His song, “Mess” has the lyrics, “So I called my old friends, but they only ever ask me how tour is … I guess the stage was my mask, I forgot the way I looked before I wore it.” These lyrics imply that Kahan felt isolated and that he lost a sense of self when touring, which is a focus of the film.
“The Great Divide,” a new single from his upcoming album with the same name, released on Jan. 30. The song is heart-wrenching, with strong vocals about growing apart from people and wishing the best for them wherever they are now. “The Great Divide is one of my new favorites,” says Knighten.“I started to think about divide in my life, whether that was the divide between me and this old version of me, or me and the people that I used to know growing up, or the people that are in my life that I’m still trying to keep a relationship with,” Kahan explained in an interview with People Magazine. “The Great Divide” is one of the two singles currently released from the upcoming album, the other being “Porch Light,” which released on March 13. “The Great Divide” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, and earned 19.3 million streams in the U.S. in the first week of release.
Though many fans won’t get the chance to see the sold out “The Great Divide Tour” this summer, Kahan’s soulful music holds up in many spaces. His personality and genuine care can be seen in his music and his work with Ticketmaster to protect fans’ pockets when buying tickets.
UPDATE: On April 9, Kahan announced the European, Australian, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom leg of the tour. Presale will start on April 15, with the regular sale on April 17. These additional shows will begin on September 25 in Melbourne, Australia, and will end on December 7 in Paris. This leg of the tour will include new openers, Michael Marcagi, Bella Kay, and Mon Rovîa, through the countries. With additional tour dates, U.S. fans will have the opportunity to see Kahan live, though it will require more travel.
