During my second week of classes, I take the train from Washington, D.C. to Bridgeport, Connecticut to see Noah Kahan, a folk artist from Vermont. Ironically, the concert is hours closer to my family home and to where the artist himself grew up. Why travel so far and pay so much money to spend less than twenty-four hours in this random place between my home and my college?

Well, for one thing, my brother Carlo is now studying in Connecticut, and (long story short) we impulse-bought these tickets nine months earlier when I was in Italy. But more importantly, Noah Kahan’s music has been the soundtrack to my college career. I find it ironic that I left Massachusetts and was introduced to an artist from Vermont while at college in Washington, D.C., but homesickness and heartbreak, two prominent themes in Kahan’s songwriting, were necessary parts of the process of relating to his lyrics the way I do. 

As a freshman, I found comfort in Kahan’s mention of the city of Boston in his 2019 song “Mess.” This song has been among my 100 most listened to songs for the past three years. The next year, when I stumbled upon his song “Part of Me” a few days after it came out, my patched-up broken heart broke all over again and I couldn’t listen to the song for weeks afterwards. Kahan’s career has spanned six years, and I’ve been a fan for half of that time, which gives me the satisfaction of bragging that I knew about him before he was cool. I had the pleasure of introducing my siblings and many of my friends to his music. I’ve seen Kahan’s development from an unknown indie artist to a folk musician who embraces his Vermonter roots and writes candidly about his depression. Recently, I’ve loved seeing his increased collaboration with mainstream artists like Post Malone and artists who I have loved for years like Maisie Peters and Lizzy McAlpine. 

Our seats are in the very back row with an obstructed view, but we can hear the music just fine, and it will surely still be ringing in our ears tomorrow. We’re welcomed into the experience with “Northern Attitude,” the hit radio single that makes me feel like I’m running across a field. I remember how during my time in Italy last year, the songs on Kahan’s 2022 Stick Season album made me long to be back in the land of beautiful foliage and people I loved. “If I get too close / And I’m not how you hoped / Forgive my northern attitude / Oh, I was raised out in the cold.” 

He plays “Paul Revere” and “Homesick,” two of his most recent songs that weren’t immediate standouts to me but are now some of my favorites. The contradictory statements (“I would leave if only I could find a reason” and “if I could leave, I would have already left”) perfectly capture his love-hate relationship with the northeast. The experience of hearing 8,000 people in a Connecticut concert venue sing, “I’m mean because I grew up in New England,” is inimitable. I remember this past summer when, at my job in Massachusetts, I befriended two Noah Kahan and Paul Revere enthusiasts who both happened to be in the car as we listened to “Paul Revere.” And when I see a lighthouse appear on the screen behind Kahan and hear seagulls in the backing track, I know that he’s about to play the song “Maine” from his Cape Elizabeth EP. The summer before last, I worked with other young adults in Maine, and my memories of this make me scream, “I wanna go to Maine” as if it’s the New England state that I’m actually from.  

My brother, even more of a superfan than I am, knows every word to every song, but his smile could not be brighter than when he hears the opening chords of “All My Love” played by Kahan on the mandolin. Carlo learned how to play the song on the mandolin for his senior project. I decide that the concert has had three highlights. The first has been seeing Carlo happier than I’ve ever seen him. The second has been the skillful mandolin, banjo, and guitar playing, particularly by a member of the band during a song whose instrumentation has never stood out to me before. The third is my new favorite song of Kahan’s, released on the deluxe version of Stick Season and—in my opinion—greatly overshadowed by the heavily-promoted, chart-climbing, TikTok-popular single. “You’re Gonna Go Far,” an ode to those who are able to escape their sleepy northeastern hometowns, is even better live than it was on the album. “We ain’t angry at you, love / You’re the greatest thing we’ve lost.” 

Carlo is sad that “Carlo’s Song” is not played, not just because of the obvious connection, but because the song was written for Kahan’s friend who committed suicide. We still pay homage to the subject of the song, though, because a portion of our tickets goes to The Busyhead Project, a mental health initiative founded by Kahan. In between songs, he also shares stories about his mental health journey. I hope he realizes how much his songs and his stories have helped his audience through their own journeys. 

The song that started it all for me also isn’t played, not even for an encore. Maybe it signifies that I’m no longer the mess that I once was. “I’m a mess / I’m a mess, good God.” 

October 2023