Noah Kahan makes the case for breakout stardom at sold-out Miller High Life Theatre concert in Milwaukee

Noah Kahan may not be a household name yet. But the Vermont singer-songwriter already has several nicknames, he quipped from the stage at Miller High Life Theatre Saturday night, including "the Jewish Ed Sheeran" and "The (expletive) Folk Malone."

I'd suggest two more monikers that might be more fitting: "Mumford & Sons' son" and "breakout star."

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Even if Kahan hadn't cited Mumford & Sons as a muse, the influence is blatant. The banjo and mandolin seasoning, the clap-and-stomp sweep, the whisper-then-shout dynamic — it was all heard repeatedly during his 90-minute set in Milwaukee.

About a decade ago, that sound turned Mumford & Sons into an arena-filling, Grammy-winning phenomenon, ushering in an Americana revival in the process. Mumford branched away from that formula, but Kahan is going back to its basics, adopting the aesthetic to give songs such as "All My Love" and "Northern Attitude" — standouts on last year's career-elevating third album "Stick Season" — gentle intimacy and heart-bursting grandeur. Saturday's crowd — most of them children when Mumford burst onto the scene — was clearly smitten.

This hardly makes Kahan an original, but it is making him successful. The 4,000-seat Miller High Life Theatre was sold out, the case for all but a handful of his North American dates through September. Kahan's name also scored prime poster placement for Bonnaroo and Boston Calling this year, right underneath the headliners.

On paper, all of this supports Kahan's "breakout star" status. But what truly justifies that classification are the specificity and vulnerability of his lyrics.

Judging by the impassioned singalongs Saturday — even for a lesser-known, early career track like "Glue Me Shut" — Kahan's words resonated just as much as the music. Even when Kahan's simplistic arrangements fail him — the blandness of "Animal" live Saturday made Maroon 5's different song by the same name sound like Nine Inch Nails by comparison — lines like "Can't see the grass getting greener 'cause out here ain't nothing but blue" shined through.

And the best parts of Kahan's show Saturday were when his four-piece backing band receded enough to let the lyrics lead the way.

Like "Glue Me Shut," "Growing Sideways" was performed with just Kahan on acoustic guitar, a song he said was inspired by a time in his life when he felt lost, before he saw a therapist. Through his word choices and the sad sweetness of his voice, you could practically see and feel the pain, from the visual of Kahan "pouring my trauma out on some sad-eyed, middle-aged man's overpriced new leather couch," to a somber realization in the bridge: "It's better to die numb than to feel it all."

And while Kahan's title track for "Stick Season," his biggest hit to date, swelled up to a soaring full-band finale Saturday, the performance's greatest power was in Kahan's solo acoustic intro.

"Now I am stuck between anger and the blame that I can't face," he sang, adding a few lines later, "And I'll dream each night of some version of you/That I might not have, but I did not lose."

So yes, Kahan is a breakout star. But the ingenuity of his lyrics suggest Kahan has the potential to become something even greater.

4 takeaways from Noah Kahan's Milwaukee show

• Kahan sold out the Miller High Life Theatre, but last month, he did something many Wisconsinites would consider a cardinal sin: He posted his personal top 10 gas-station brands on Twitter and left out Kwik Trip. To ensure he wasn't pelted with tomatoes (or glazers), Kahan tweeted Saturday that Kwik Trip was now in his top 5, and he visited the Oak Creek location for a WDJT-TV (Ch. 58) segment, in which he reviewed the station and proclaimed Kwik Trip "an unbelievable establishment." (No Kwik Trip shout-out at the show, though.)

• Kahan took the stage to a boxing-announcer-inspired introduction that was hard to discern, but what clearly stood out were the words "schlemiel" and "schlimazel," taken, of course, from Milwaukee-set sitcom "Laverne & Shirley."

• Sample banter: "If there's someone in your life that you love that's really finding happiness and hitting their stride, and you're still working on it and not there yet, I beg you, Milwaukee, the best thing you can do for this friendship and for yourself is to drag that (expletive) right back down with you."

• With a full house, and family in the audience, opener Jack Van Cleaf hinted at the immense pressure he felt on stage, just before debuting a moving new song, in the form of a voicemail from a father to a distant son, the regret and sadness palpable between the words, and in his longing delivery. Van Cleaf may have been understandably nervous, but it takes nerves of steel to be so vulnerable. And the crowd’s glowing reception — literally in the case of closer “Cowboy,” with smartphone lights spontaneously lighting up the room — was akin to a warm family hug.

Noah Kahan's Miller High Life Theatre setlist

1. "False Confidence"

2. "All My Love"

3. "Everywhere, Everything"

4. "Animal"

5. "New Perspective"

6. "Growing Sideways"

7. "Glue Me Shut"

8. "Maine"

9. "Come Over"

10. "Northern Attitude"

11. "She Calls Me Back"

12. "Passenger"

13. "Carlo's Song"

14. "Homesick"

15. "Orange Juice"

16. "Young Blood"

17. "The View Between Villages"

18. "Stick Season"

19. "Mess"

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Noah Kahan makes case as breakout star at sold-out Milwaukee concert