For a time, my friend and I were weirdly fascinated with the “brown note,” a legendary sonic frequency that would supposedly force a listener to shit their pants. We would talk endlessly about what it might be like to be exposed to this infamous noise; imagine, you’ve turned up to some gig in your skinny jeans and little leather jacket, nursing a pint of overpriced beer, checking Instagram on your phone, probably a little bored, when suddenly, during the support act, this mysterious sound wave emanates from the speakers, growing steadily in volume and intensity until it becomes so overwhelming, so terribly voluptuous, that you involuntarily surrender control of your bowels. That this spontaneous voiding would take place in public, surrounded by your fellow concert goers, was a big part of the horror, and indeed the obsession. If you alone succumbed to the effects of this peculiar aural laxative, surely a lifetime of shameful exile from the tribe would be the only natural response. But what if it hit so hard, the brown note so potent, that the entire crowd was moved to defecate as one, the room erupting in a hideous collective stench, the floor disappearing beneath a viscous layer of liquid diarrhea? Well, then it would certainly be a memorable show. When discussing possible soundtracks to this mass soiling experience, my pals and I would toss around the usual names: Sunn O))), Khanate, Merzbow, Prurient… furthest from our mind would’ve been the kind of TikTok-friendly folk-pop peddled by Noah Kahan; a type of music that I would, unironically, rather shit my pants than have to listen to. However, the morning after his Friday night show in Philadelphia, the singer-songwriter was moved to issue a peculiar yet important public service announcement to his many, many fans. “If you have to poop at a show please dear god just go to the bathroom lmao,” said Kahan, “I’ve pooped my pants as much as the next 29 year old but you guys gotta understand there’s a venue worker out there with a 1000 yard stare after dealing with that.”Onstage in Toronto on Sunday, he asked his fans to swear an oath:Noah Kahan asks the Toronto crowd to take an oath to use the bathrooms during his show @NoahKahan #TheGreatDivideTour #NoahKahan pic.twitter.com/YiKTVBK31S— MuchMusic (@Much) June 29, 2026It’s alarming that Noah has the kind of audience that needs to be reminded not to shit itself. Viral footage from the massive stadium concert shows the floor smeared with human muck, as Noah cheerfully sings a neat little ditty called “Haircut” (with the chorus “I’m happy for your haircut / I’m glad you got your act clеan”) and the woman filming the video asks what we’re all thinking (“What the fuck?”).Presumably to prove that his shows are a safe space for everyone, even coprophiliacs, Noah also posted that “I shit myself onstage in Charlottesville but that’s because I am dedicated to my craft.” The statement raises the disturbing possibility that this was some kind of dirty tribute, and I can only hope this isn’t some new craze sweeping Gen Z concertgoers. Olivia Rodrigo recently revealed that sometimes she can smell her fan’s diapers from the stage. I suppose this is one way of having an intimate connection to your favorite popstar, not only are you close enough to look them in the eye, but with a strong breeze they can also catch a whiff of whatever you had for lunch. Maybe pissing and shitting yourself at gigs is now becoming so normalized that performers will start incorporating it into their stage banter. “Good evening, Springfield, I can tell we’ve got a lot of asparagus fans in the house tonight. Be sure to pick up some of our new screen-printed diapers from the merch stand on the way out.” Today, it can feel as though every aspect of life has been hijacked and made worse by annoying, attention-seeking pricks. Go watch a hardcore band and you might find it ruined by a giant banana. There’s Italian children playing chess in the front row of the rap show. This, at least, doesn’t feel quite the same as those things. As much as we should push back against a fan culture that would normalize Swifties adopting the guerrilla ablution strategies of special forces operatives, I will admit to a certain begrudging admiration for this level of passion and commitment—even in service of someone as “Stomp Clap Hey”-coded as Noah Kahan. OTHER NEWSFilming has started on an adaption of The Bell Jar starring Billie Eilish; RIP Sylvia Plath, you would’ve loved jorts.“Yes Drake, I [the late Ian Curtis] see your surprise three-album drop and I raise you 16 Joy Division live albums.”The author Zoe Dubno spent a weekend with 100 girlbosses and all she got was a “tutorial on watercoloring a Mason jar full of peonies” (and this New York Magazine feature).PREDICTION OF THE WEEKAfter revealing that “one of the strategies I used to become more neurotypical was to pick out a random person on the street and follow them around for the entire day,” it becomes clear that the influencer known as Clavicular is in fact a character from a forthcoming Nathan Fielder show. BRAND NEW SENTENCE“love island is like what if the stanford prison experiment was porn”BONUS PREDICTION: GOOD NEWS FOR FANS OF SHITTING YOURSELFFinally, The Great Divide between folk pop and doom metal is crossed by supergroup Noah Khanate, whose album of covers is composed entirely of brown notes.The post Note to Gen Z: It’s Not Cool to Shit or Piss Yourself at Live Shows appeared first on VICE.