Noah Kahan returns to SNL with ‘The Great Divide’ and ‘Doors’

Noah Kahan made his return to Saturday Night Live last night, performing “The Great Divide” and “Doors” from his new album of the same name. It was his second time on the show, but the moment still carried the feel of a significant step for an artist whose rise has been tied as much to scale as to sentiment.

Kahan’s fourth studio album, The Great Divide, arrived on April 24, and he brought two of its tracks to the SNL stage on May 9 alongside host Matt Damon. This time, he came with his full band, leaning into the album’s Americana frame on the title track before shifting into the more stripped-back, folksy acoustic ballad “Doors.”

The appearance landed as the penultimate episode of SNL’s 51st season, with the finale set for next week and Will Ferrell hosting before Paul McCartney performs. McCartney’s new album, The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, is due out on May 29.

Kahan first made his SNL debut in December 2023, and his return arrives at a point where his career has moved from breakout story to sustained touring operation. Alongside the album, he has now announced a world tour that takes him through Australia and New Zealand in September and October, then on to the UK and Ireland in November before dates across mainland Europe. Remaining tickets are available here.

He is also set to play the North American leg this summer, with tickets still available here. Beyond that, Kahan has already been named on the Bonnaroo 2026 lineup, alongside The Strokes, Turnstile, Skrillex and others.

The album itself has been framed by Kahan as an attempt to make sense of distance, memory and the people who shaped him. He described The Great Divide as arising from “a long silence” that creates “a great expanse demanding attention,” one he looks across toward “old friends, my father, my mother, my siblings, my younger self, the great state of Vermont.” He said he wanted to “scream these feelings,” but instead wrote them down in sessions “next to a piano in Nashville, next to a pond in Guilford Vermont, in a legendary studio in upstate New York, on a farm with a firetower in Only, Tennessee.”

“The songs are the words I would say if I could. They are the fears I dance with in the moments before I drift off to sleep. The music here is my best attempt to delve deeper into the people, places, and feelings that have made me who I am. I am grateful for all of it, for all of you, for listening to them, if you choose to do so.”

That kind of language has become part of the public understanding of Kahan’s appeal, especially after the massive success of “Stick Season.” In a 2023 interview with NME, he said of that song’s unexpected reach, “I never thought this was gonna happen to me.”