Concert Guy

With Gigi Perez & Annabelle Dinda

Noah Kahan. The Folk-Pop/Indie Folk (with a little country sprinkled in) sensation. The dude who sold out stadiums all over the world. Literally. Let’s dive into this one!

The Trip to See Noah Kahan in Phoenix

First off, my concert-loving daughter really wanted to see this tour and we had 4 chances to see him in Boston. But since we didn’t snag tickets during the presale, and it sold out quickly, resale tickets were the best we could do. Being a bit of a concert snob, I wasn’t going to spend $300 each to sit in nosebleeds. Nor was I going to spend $800+ each for decent seats (and let’s face it, Fenway is not the greatest place for a concert sound-wise).

Fast forward a week or two after the Boston shows were done and I get a “can we go to Phoenix?” text. I figured maybe it was to check out a school or something. Nope! Noah Kahan. “Tickets are cheaper than Boston.” Even so, we need to factor in travel and accommodations. Well, somehow it was cheaper all in (concert tickets, plane tickets, resort-style accommodations, and a rental car) and we got a mini vaca out of it. In the end was it cheaper than a single night in Boston? Probably not. But getting to the show was and the memories are way better! So off we went!

Arriving at Chase Field—and the Merch Lines

We got to Chase Field maybe an hour before show time. While slow moving, it was surprisingly easy to get into the parking garage I had prepaid for. A short walk put us into the venue pretty quickly. We got through security, were handed little bracelets for later, and looked for where our seats would be. “Wanna check out the merch?” Nope! I’ve never seen anything like this in the 100s of shows I’ve been to. The first merch line we saw was set up in the Diamondbacks team store, snaking around the store, and then up and down, weaving through the concourse as far back as you could go until you hit the next merch booth. That too was a line we had no interest standing in. This didn’t stop at all. I’m quite certain many people missed both openers waiting for merch and this was just one side of the level 1 concourse.

Right before Noah Kahan’s set, I ran up to grab a snack and a drink and there were still a million people in line. Got my food and drink in 30 seconds…after having to cut through the merch lines to get there. Did people miss Noah’s set? I’d love to know. Anyway, as long as you were within 50 miles of the stadium the day of the show, you could order tour merch online and ship it home. So for $8 extra for shipping, but 17 hours less time standing in line and actually getting to see the show, that’s what we did. See you at home T-Shirt!

Annabelle Dinda Opens the Show

Annabelle Dinda opened and I knew nothing about her. She does have a song called The Hand that is apparently pretty well known. What I can say is that she was laughing, smiling, and seemed genuinely happy on stage. Nice folksy voice, she had a full band, and she played guitar on at least one. Works for me.

Gigi Perez Live at Chase Field

Gigi Perez came out at 7:15pm and made the most of her 40 minute time slot. She opened with what I believe was Please Be Rude. I was happy to learn that not only is she the singer but she also plays rhythm guitar for nearly every song. I think just one song she was vocals only.

During the set she introduced her little sister Bella who came out and sang Sugar Water with her (since she co-wrote it according to Gigi) and they had some solid harmonies together! She works a cover of Lana Del Rey’s Summertime Sadness into the set and ends the night with Sailor Song which gave ole Concert Guy Rob here two songs he was familiar with. She was really good. As I’ve stated many times, I prefer hard rock and metal, but I love live music. She puts on a good show, has a lot of energy, has fun with the band, and the girl has talent. There were no old man “this isn’t music!” or “you like this?” comments from me for this one. A bit too mellow for me when it comes to putting on some tunes in the car, but when played with stadium energy and crazy sound levels, it’s a good time.

Noah Kahan Live in Phoenix

Noah Kahan, and the reason we traveled across the country, started around 8:30pm.

Leading up to the show, we were a bit nervous. He apparently was sick for his previous show in San Diego and had posted online that the crowd held him up. He was pretty quiet the day of the Phoenix show, until he wasn’t. This was around 4pm:

So he’s sick, but thankfully not sick enough to cancel, and is referencing Michael Jordan playing sick but still scoring 38 points. Ok, let’s see how he does.

The dude was solid. If this is how he performs sick, then I guess the non-sick shows must be worth checking out. He didn’t stop running around the stage all night during the non-singing parts. His voice was solid with a good range, long held notes, laughing with the band, etc. Besides his social media posts and stating after the 2nd song (Doors) that he was “sick as a dog” there was no indication to me that he was sick.

The night started with American Cars and a big stage production. He had a car on the stage, a small house/cottage, a screen spanning the entire width of the stage for all kinds of background and video changes, big light show, only 2 small uses of pyro throughout the night, and those bracelets I mentioned light up and sync with the show all night. Very cool tech that I believe Coldplay first made popular but I could be wrong. He also has 6 other musicians with him throughout the majority of the show. The exceptions would be when it’s just him with a guitar, or during the encore when he added a 3 piece horn section.

The show took place mostly on the expansive main stage, but there was also a runway out to a smaller stage in the middle of the floor where they played too. Orbiter opened this portion of the show with a giant moon lighting up the band back on the main stage. After that, we got a couple songs with just Noah on and a guitar still on the small stage. Regardless of your musical taste, it’s impressive to see one person with a guitar stand in front of 40-50k people and sing. He performed Dan from this stage, a song about his best friend Dan and high school days from what I gather. This made me chuckle to myself because I too once wrote a song about one of my best friends Dan back in the day. It has a MUCH different tone and meaning. But that’s a story for another time (or never). I had a line in there about calling the cops on him…which brings me back to Noah.

During Dial Drunk he had a little chase around the stage car before being “arrested” and put into it while singing the first section of the song. And this is also the song where we got a tiny fizzle of pyros. I liked the way he intro’d some songs. His song Dashboard was introduced with something like “how many of you are an asshole?” While Staying Still was introduced with “This is a song about how much I hate Boston Logan Airport” which is where we flew out of to come to this show!

I believe it was before playing Haircut when he asked if anyone was from New England. There was a lot of cheering. Do people just cheer for anything or did us New Englanders infiltrate Phoenix? I did see several comments online before the show that said things like, “please don’t cancel, we flew in from NY” or Maine, or Vermont…so we weren’t the only ones.

He performed 22 songs in total and you can view Noah Kahan’s complete Phoenix setlist here. I gotta say again, it was a really good show lasting about 2 hours. It’s now also my daughter’s new number one spot for favorite concert. Guitars, drums, banjos, bass, fiddles, horns, and keys/piano. Perhaps not my genre, but a really solid show and overall production. He speaks to the crowd, showed gratitude, entertains, didn’t let being sick impact the show, and genuinely seems to love it. Well done. There’s only a handful of US stops left, but I’m sure he’ll be back around. Check him out if you have the opportunity, and sign up for any presales!