Rock ‘n’ roll has always been about excitement and danger, the ability to subvert the norm and turn it into something visceral. As time goes by, it seems like more and more is pushed to reach that new high, the old shocks becoming jaded due to repetition and expectation, familiarity breeding contempt.
President
Nick Rayns LCR, UEA, Norwich – 20 April 2026
Words: Paul Monkhouse
Photography: @zakpinchinfilms
In the 1970’s, bands like KISS and Alice Cooper pushed the theatrical side of rock, bringing genuine drama and a sense of otherworldliness to the scene, the latter having some great songs to boot.
Nowadays, it’s down to Slipknot, Lordi, Ghost and Sleep Token to bring that air of mystery, the former of course having been readily exposed without their masks, but there remains a frisson of curiosity as to real identities as each lets the music do the talking.
It has been written that President were years in development, a top-secret project that brought all of Download to a standstill when they made their debut onsite at an absolutely rammed Dogtooth Stage last year.
Their brief but impactful set was the talk of the weekend, a truly viral event with hundreds claiming they were there when in actuality they were far from the tent.
With quite a few more dates under their belts, this debut UK tour was the chance for people to really get a chance to see the band up close, every date selling out in record time.
When the travelling campaign trail hit Norwich, fifteen hundred squeezed into the venue for the rally, ready to hang on every word.
Things had reached fever pitch by the time vocalist President, guitarist Heist, bass player Protest, and drummer Vice strolled onto stage and tore into the soaring yet crushing Fearless in front of a crowd in a state of near hysteria, as they chanted its title with arms raised.
With their heady blend of Metalcore and electronica, the outfit can build skyscraping anthems like Dionysus that float along with an almost pop melody yet wind up with a blistering breakdown that sees the vocalist at his rawest.
Pacing the stage as his masked compatriots pour everything into their instruments, President sees every eye glued to him, the tall anonymous figure blending circus ringmaster and siren.
A gorgeous RAGE is transfixing, the punch of the heavy section in such stark contrast to the electronic burbling that leads to it like being suddenly doused with a bucket of icy water.
Throwing in a cover of Deftones number Change (In The House of Flies) worked well, the song a natural fit into the set and moved wordlessly into set closer Conclave as an extended finish brought out the angular muscle of its last notes.
A swift return for three more numbers finishing with a delightfully unhinged mix of light and shade, with In The Name of the Father, the quartet left the stage, the rally complete and the committed dazed.
With a total running time of just over forty minutes, it seems like President have a lot of work ahead of them to justify headlining a tour with such a brief set, and at times the evening seemed unnecessarily stretched to compensate for this seeming lack of material.
With the ever-growing use of AI in music and effects slathered live shows, the experience of going to a gig is changing rapidly to fit with the TikTok generation, the medium having to work ever harder to gain and keep attention.
President tread a fine line at the moment, capturing their own zeitgeist with some great songs but are in danger of becoming a novelty when the world is starting to look for something with a more human touch.
Only time will tell.
