‘Who’s ready to leave here feeling depressed?’, shouts the 28-year-old blue-suited man in the middle of London’s Hyde Park.
Sure, he’s got a neatly trimmed beard and a few friends alongside him – but let’s all admit that on any other day, most people in the vicinity would likely give this kind of behaviour a wide berth. There might be the occasional slither of tutting, and maybe even an eye roll or two; but we can guarantee that effectively everyone who overheard any braided-hair American bellowing about his mental health (and sweat patches) in the middle of a London park in July would stick to the unwritten British rule of just ignoring whatever’s going on here, thank you very much.
And yet, dear reader, this isn’t any other day. This is Noah Kahan’s sold out headline show – his biggest to date – at London’s BST Hyde Park, and the sight of a late-twenties man bouncing about a stage while singing songs about anxiety, addiction, and long-lost loves is exactly what the 65,000 people in attendance came to see.
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Indeed, this was less like a headline show and more like a giant, emotional group therapy session.
And honestly? It was glorious. Heartfelt, warm, and a little bit scruffy, Kahan’s made his name by writing the kind of introspective acoustic anthems that’ll simultaneously make you want to dance and drunkenly call your ex – and we’ll be damned if he’s ever performed them with more vigour than he does at BST Hyde Park, London on this warm July evening.
All My Love, False Confidence, and She Calls Me Back are early highlights, as are Orange Juice and new song Deny Deny Deny. It’s a mark of his mastery that despite the size of the venue, Kahan somehow manages to make this feel like a family affair. A wholesome shoutout to his (visibly emotional) mother as she watched from a viewing platform quickly gives way to a three-song acoustic section, performed on a small platform in the middle of the crowd, and allowing Kahan to get as close to his audience as he would’ve been at any one of his earlier London shows.
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And then, we hit the home run.
Dial Drunk, You’re Gonna Go Far, Call Your Mom (complete with a guest appearance from Gigi Perez), and The View Between Villages arrive in quick succession, before a certain Scottish superstar turns up unannounced to give his best Hozier impression in Northern Attitude.
It’s only as the compulsory closing rendition of Stick Season (and some rather lovely fireworks) send Noah, mother, band, and fans off into the night that we begin to really appreciate what happened here tonight.
Half stadium-folk spectacle, half emotional outburst, it’d be easy to say that Noah Kahan’s shows aren’t for the fragile; but alas, reader, we’d argue that the opposite is true. If you’ve got a busy head, you’re in a safe space; if you’re in need of an outpouring, there’s no better place. So, long reign Noah Kahan, bearded king of the sadbangers, and quite possibly one of the best live acts on the planet right now.
