Noah Kahan: the self-described ‘Jewish Ed Sheeran’ proves why he’s the next global superstar

Say what you like about the BBC, but Radio 1’s Live Lounge has given us some absolute crackers over the years: Amy Winehouse’s era-defining spin on The Zutons’ Valerie; Arctic Monkeys warbling through Girls Aloud’s Love Machine; Harry Styles doing Lizzo; Lizzo doing Harry Styles. The list goes on.

Last month, a new top-tier cover joined the pantheon: Olivia Rodrigo’s breathy rendition of rising star Noah Kahan’s Stick Season. One of America’s hottest up-and-coming artists, Kahan was recently shortlisted for Best New Artist at the 2024 Grammys, his earworm-hooks, positive mental health-messaging and commercial blend of folk-rock setting him up as an artist with all the ingredients necessary to be the (in his own words) “Jewish Ed Sheeran or Lewis Capaldi”. 

The 26-year-old from Vermont led the 2,300-strong crowd at the O2 Forum Kentish Town in a cathartic mass therapy session on Monday night. Like Sheeran or Capaldi, Kahan utilises his casual demeanour to present himself as an everyman, a vehicle for other people’s emotions. And Kahan is only going to get bigger: on December 2, he’ll feature as Emma Stone’s musical guest on Saturday Night Live, while February will see him return to the UK for a sold-out arena tour.

Lifelong battles with mental illness feature prominently in Kahan’s music, which has an almost storybook-like quality: it weaves through people, places and difficult memories; scenes of luscious New England forests strewn with blistered red and yellow leaves unfold before you with each note. Opening with Northern Attitude (sung with Hozier on album Stick Season), a rousing, fiddle-backed track that blames his emotional detachment on the physical scarcity of his roots (“If I get too close / And I’m not how you hoped / Forgive my northern attitude, I was raised out in the cold”) I was struck immediately by the crowd’s reception: they knew every word of every song, displaying the kind of fervent adoration usually reserved for legacy artists.

On Dial Drunk, Kahan sang about his arrest after a messy bar brawl, desperately trying to reach an ex-lover to bail him out (“‘Son, are you a danger to yourself?’” the officer asks him). With Call Your Mum, he extended a hand to anyone contemplating suicide (“Don’t let this darkness fool you / All lights turned off can be turned on”) while Stick Season saw him defiantly shrug off his generational trauma (“So I thought if I piled something good with all my bad / I could cancel all the darkness I inherited from dad”). They’re heavy themes, but folk has always been the perfect medium for pain, its lullaby incantations masking the darkness that lies beneath. Kahan taps into this tradition with ease.   

Kahan ended the night with a duo of beautifully elegiac ballads (You’re Gonna Go Far and Homesick) depicting the conflicting feelings wrought from escaping your home town – a source of pride or acceptance that you’ve abandoned the people you love most? They were a fitting sign-off for an artist who must know that his life has changed for good. 

Playing O2 Forum Kentish Town again tonight, then touring the UK in February; noahkahan.com/tour/