Live Review: President - The Garage, London 30/07/2025
The inaugural headline rally of the mysterious entity that is President was a sharp, stunning, and surprisingly short glimpse into what’s to come for the group that’s fast-becoming metal’s next big thing.
Let’s start with some context. Back in February, Download announced their second wave of bands. Shinedown, Rise Against, Myles Kennedy… and then, seemingly snuck in, came one band that got tongues a-wagging. A band that had no music, no online presence, basically just a void where information should be.
Then they released their debut single, ‘In The Name Of The Father’, and their late-afternoon slot suddenly made sense: the track blends anguished screams and maudlin crooning with pop production and pounding drums alike, the same staunch, genre-defying characteristics as their masked brethren in Sleep Token but centred around the stark, emotionally devastating power of their oh-so-familiar frontman. ‘Fearless’ came next, the chanting chorus adding in another dimension of crowd engagement, and, after their stint at Download saw the tent veritably overflowing with fans desperate to get their ‘I was there’ badges, the more synth-led ‘Rage’ gave a glimpse of the more upbeat vein in President’s slowly unveiling repertoire.
If you haven’t gathered, then, President’s headline debut was quite a big thing. With fans queuing up from 5:30am, travelling to Islington from up and down the country and beyond, and a dedicated few spending literal hundreds on resale for the long-sold out show, to say that people were excited for their ‘inaugural rally’ at The Garage is an understatement equivalent to calling Lorna Shore ‘a little heavy’. Plus, with the entirety of next year’s debut headline tour selling out within minutes of going on sale, it doesn’t look like the band are in any danger of getting ahead of themselves.
And then you enter the venue, and you get sucked into the group’s immersive world-building escapades. You can’t ever slate commitment to the bit. Flags, placards and badges handed out to those first into the venue let everyone show their support for their glorious leader — this was a Presidential rally, after all — and black bunting emblazoned with their symbol, fluttering from the ceiling, gave the impression of a political fundraiser in a town hall. There were even masked security guarding the stairs, the band’s own anonymous secret service, sweltering under their skin-tight masks. In fact, everyone was — turns out flags make quite good makeshift fans in a pinch. Who knew?
But, before President could take to the stage, it was time for their support, the equally enigmatic duo of Zetra. The pair were already well equipped to whisk the crowd away to another world through their ethereal, enigmatic soundscapes, but, with a mystical, mysterious portal stolen from the realm of fairytales taking centre stage, it was obvious that they weren’t taking any chances. Ethereally soaring shoegaze, with a sprinkle of pounding tracked drums, made up the pair’s immersive soundscapes as recent tracks like ‘Spider’, ‘Suffer Eternally’, and older numbers like ‘Starfall’ washed over the packed-out venue. There was even a cover of Kittie’s ‘Charlotte’, with the unexpected appearance of Employed To Serve’s Justine Jones. It was just a shame that the crowd’s enthusiasm never grew beyond tepid.
‘Citizens. Welcome to the inaugural headline rally. Today you stand among the select few chosen to witness the defining moment in human history’ went the automated voice over the Tanoy.
And it was indeed the select few. As President took to the stage, every bit of them looking like a security force escorting their leader — whose masked amalgamation of U.S. presidents leaves him looking like a seasoned bank robber — the 600-capacity room was heaving, the oxygen all spent in devout roars of the band’s name. That breathlessness persisted throughout the band’s shockingly short six song set; from opener ‘Fearless’ or recent release ‘Rage’ through to the band’s frankly stunning cover of Deftones’ ‘Change (In the House of Flies)’ or the crushing finality of ‘In The Name Of The Father’, the set was non-stop. Even the unreleased duo of ‘Dionysus’ and ‘Destroy Me’, making up the rest of September’s upcoming debut EP ‘King Of Terrors’, were somehow screamed along to in their entirety — either President-based prescience or persistence, fans presumably having memorised the religiously consumed videos from Download.
The group’s live presence, tempered both by the members’ previous projects and utter confidence in their musical wares, showed the band’s impressive range: gentle crooning and throat-ripping screams abound from the masked monolith on stage, amidst the pop-rock-metal instrumental behemoths that his band throw out, all equalling one hell of a set.
The end, then, felt inevitable but abrupt all the same. There was no talking, no engagement, just a long, slow, graceful bow from their viceroy vocalist… although the subsequent deluge of sweat pouring out of his mouth hole, unsurprising given just how volcanic the venue felt by the end, may have marred his otherwise otherworldly ambiguity.
A six-song set may feel a tad insulting after the build-up, particularly with the literal hundreds some desperate fans had formed out, but there have been many a set with twice the length and half the enjoyment. You can’t put a price on such a truly special night, and it’s undeniable that it’s only the start of something monumental.
Words by James O'Sullivan
Photography by Adam Rossi
