Noah Kahan is playing the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco on August 13th, but that morning is probably blocked out on his calendar for soccer.
Kahan is a huge fan of Chelsea in England's Premier League, and their season starts on the 13th with a match against Liverpool that starts at 8:30 am PT. Kahan is such a fan that he wrote an essay about his love for the team for Atlas Obscura.
Kahan wrote that his love for the team even brought him closer together with his mom as they started watching matches together. "She was so cool: The rule was that during Chelsea games I was allowed to swear. We’d get so upset at the referee or at a player for missing, or an opposing player for fouling, that we would just be like screaming and swearing at the TV. We’d kind of almost do British accents when we were swearing. It was just a funny thing my mom and I could do together."
Kahan added that he was in middle school when his fandom started and "I was so insecure that I think I needed to feel safe, and watching Chelsea was the only time I ever felt completely safe and free to express myself. Chelsea got me out of my head. It became something outside of our little universe in New Hampshire that my mom and I could bond over."