Noah Kahan

Strafford, Vermont

Noah Berkenkamp Kahan was born on 1 January 1997 and grew up in Strafford, Vermont, on a tree farm. His father taught him guitar, he was given his first at ten, and by around twelve he was fronting a school-age band called the Bloodthirsties. He crossed into New Hampshire for Hanover High School, where he played varsity soccer.

The detail matters because he has never written about much else. The winters, the people who left, the people who stayed and the silence between them are the raw material of every record he has made since, and by 2026 he was still saying in interviews that essentially every song he writes is about that place.

Two albums, then a TikTok fragment

Republic Records signed him in 2017 and moved him to New York, with stretches in Los Angeles and Nashville and support slots on tours including Milky Chance. The debut album Busyhead arrived in 2019, led by 'Hurt Somebody' with Julia Michaels, which reached No. 24 on Billboard's Hot Rock chart. He went back to Vermont as the pandemic began, released the Cape Elizabeth EP in May 2020, and followed it with I Was / I Am on 17 September 2021. Neither produced a hit.

The change came from a clip. From October 2020 he had been posting snippets of an unfinished song on TikTok; the full 'Stick Season' was released on 8 July 2022 and the album of the same name on 14 October 2022, entering the Billboard 200 at No. 14 for his first chart placing. A deluxe edition, Stick Season (We'll All Be Here Forever), added seven tracks on 9 June 2023, and the title song kept rising long after a normal release cycle would have closed: No. 1 in the UK on 5 January 2024, No. 1 in Australia that February, No. 9 on the Hot 100 in April 2024.

A Best New Artist nomination followed at the 2024 Grammys, and a Best Country Duo/Group Performance nomination in 2025. Much of the reach came through duet versions and guest spots: 'Dial Drunk' with Post Malone, 'Northern Attitude' with Hozier, 'Homesick' with Sam Fender, 'She Calls Me Back' with Kacey Musgraves, 'Everywhere, Everything' with Gracie Abrams, 'Call Your Mom' with Lizzy McAlpine, and 'Sarah's Place' with Zach Bryan, which reached No. 14 on the Hot 100. A live album, Live From Fenway Park, was released on 30 August 2024.

The Great Divide

Kahan announced his fourth album on 28 January 2026 and released the title track two days later, premiering the video during the Grammy Awards broadcast. 'Porch Light' followed on 13 March, and The Great Divide came out on 24 April 2026 through Mercury Records, with 'Doors' and 'Orbiter' lifted from it afterwards.

The standard edition runs to 17 tracks and 77 minutes, produced by Aaron Dessner, Gabe Simon and Kahan across four studios: Long Pond in the Hudson Valley, Guilford Sound in Vermont, Fire Tower Farm in Only, Tennessee, and Gold Pacific in Nashville. It reads as a record about what sudden fame did to his relationships with family, friends and his home state, and about the distance unspoken things create. An expanded edition, The Last of the Bugs, added four more tracks.

Reviews were largely favourable without being unanimous. Rolling Stone gave it 4.5 stars and the Associated Press 4 out of 5, praising the folk-rooted hooks and the writing; Pitchfork scored it 6.2, with the running time and sprawl the recurring complaint among less enthusiastic critics.

Commercially it was the biggest rock release in years. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 389,000 equivalent units, including more than 215 million on-demand streams, the largest streaming debut of 2026, the biggest week for a rock album since the chart moved to units in 2014, and the biggest vinyl week for a rock album since electronic tracking began in 1991. It held the top spot for three consecutive weeks and also went to No. 1 in the UK, Ireland, Australia, the Netherlands and Switzerland. 'Stick Season' returned to the Hot 100 top ten in its wake.

Where he stands in September 2026

By the time the album was out, his label was reporting more than 1.5 million tickets sold across the touring cycle, with the North American stadium leg sold out and extra arena nights added in London, Dublin, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland. Ticket transfers on the US run were restricted to Ticketmaster's Face Value Exchange, a deliberate move to keep resale prices down.

The clearest marker of scale is Fenway Park. Kahan played four consecutive sold-out nights there in July 2026, the longest run any artist has managed at the ballpark, two years after recording a live album at the same venue.

Away from the stadiums, the most recent dated appearance is smaller. On 15 September 2026 he played Spruce Peak in Stowe, Vermont, alone and acoustic, a 14-song set to about 2,000 people who had bought tickets through a lottery. The concert and an accompanying golf tournament, Folk and Fairways, raised three million dollars for the Busyhead Project, the mental health organisation he co-founded in 2023 and on whose board his mother serves as secretary, taking its total past 13 million dollars. He told the crowd he had not played in Vermont in a long time and that it made him sad.

Other recent context: Vermont's governor declared 19 September 2024 Noah Kahan's Busyhead Project Day, Netflix released the documentary Noah Kahan: Out of Body, he played Glastonbury in 2025, and he married Brenna Nolan in Strafford on 23 August 2025.

From Fenway to Wembley

The Great Divide Tour is his fifth, running from 11 June to 7 December 2026 across 57 shows and three legs. The North American stadium run opened in Orlando on 11 June, took in Bonnaroo on 14 June, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on 26 June, Wrigley Field, the Rose Bowl on 15 August and Busch Stadium in St Louis on 2 August, and closed in Seattle on 30 August. One date in Queens was cancelled for weather. Gigi Perez supported throughout, with Annabelle Dinda opening.

The Australasian leg is under way now: Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on 25, 26, 28 and 29 September, Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney on 2, 3, 5 and 6 October, and Spark Arena in Auckland on 9 and 10 October, with Michael Marcagi supporting. A European leg follows through November and early December, with Bella Kay and Mon Rovia among the openers on the international dates.

In August 2026 he began rolling out 2027. The Last of the Bugs World Tour takes his name to stadiums outside North America for the first time: Hampden Park in Glasgow on 13 July, the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on 17 July and Wembley Stadium on 23 July, with a second Wembley night added on 24 July after presale demand. Presales opened on 25 August 2026 and general sale on 28 August. Kahan has said the announcement is only the first tranche, and further European dates have since been added.