The latter made former President Barack Obama\u2019s annual Summer Playlist<\/a> this year, a fact Kahan made mention of during a running bit where he feigns answering a payphone with a different caller at every stop.<\/p>\n \u201cObama?,\u201d Kahan quipped into the receiver. \u201cYou finally put me on your summer playlist after 15 [expletive] years? Are you doing OK? It\u2019s not a happy song at all. Is everything all right with Michelle?\u201d<\/p>\n Set design by London-based STUFISH Studio<\/a> dropped fans into Kahan\u2019s native Strafford, Vermont: As the show opened, columns and doors arose as the roof of a clapboard house descended from above. To one side, a cop car sat parked under a gas station awning, complete with pumps and price signs. To the other, mossy rocks jutted out.<\/p>\n Kahan\u2019s B-stage took the form of a fishing dock, illuminated with string lights.<\/p>\n Production design by Sooner Routhier<\/a> and The Playground Creative<\/a> allowed the house on set to shapeshift through seasons and settings, a massive LED video wall allowing for scenery to show a general store alight with police flashers during \u201cDial Drunk\u201d and a sunset over the roof as Kahan sang \u201cWilling and Able.\u201d<\/p>\n LED wristbands handed out at the door illuminated the crowd during the show\u2019s more emotional moments, like Kahan\u2019s \u201cThe View Between Villages,\u201d an angsty ode to the pain of growing up inspired by Vermont\u2019s Route 132, or \u201cPain is Cold Water,\u201d a ballad Kahan exclusively performs live that declares, \u201cpain\u2019s like cold water, your brain just gets used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n The show was also cognizant of its stop in one of the capitals of country music: A rousing fiddle solo by band member Nina De Vitry during \u201cPaid Time Off\u201d drew raucous cheers of \u201cyeehaw\u201d from the crowd, as did nifty banjo work by Noah Levine and Dylan Jones.<\/p>\n Of the venue, Kahan remarked that the stadium felt like something out of Suzanne Collins\u2019 \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d novel series. If fans were unhappy with the set list<\/a>, he said, they certainly had the numbers to take him out.<\/p>\n But Kahan got there first, delivering a stunning experience more than worthy of the global hype.<\/p>\n Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n