Mystery masked band PRESIDENT played their long awaited sold out Irish debut at The Academy last night, with their political theming, the concert was technically called a rally.
Masked singer, known only as The President, but is long rumoured, and more or less confirmed to be Charlie Simpson from the band Busted.
PRESIDENT are a band that sprung up out of nowhere, appearing halfway up a festival lineup in the UK, and releasing their first single to huge acclaim. Their inaugural rally, also known as Download festival, with five times as many people showing up as their stage had capacity for.
There set, albeit short, was packed full of energy, and had the crowd jumping and moshing from the start to the end.
A concert that I went through a lot of hassle to attend, with the protests going on leaving me in Dublin that night, luckily with a friend whose floor I could sleep on., and there is little doubt in my mind that it was absolutely worth it.
Their energetic mix of clean vocals, mixed with screaming vocals and distorted heavy guitar riffs. Making an incredible fusion of the lighter elements and the heaviest elements of the genre.
Stage Setup: 10/10, Featuring a giant neon symbol behind the stage, a pulpit for the lead singer, and flashing light implements. For the small stage there is in The Academy, they made perfect use of what they had at their disposal.
Band Performance: 10/10, The lead singer, who remains nameless, has one of the best voices I have yet to hear live, with his amazing clean vocals and his rip roaring scream vocals. The rest of the band as well had such a great time on their instruments which blended perfectly with the vocals.
Support: 10/10, Support was from The Boy Shadow, certainly one of the stranger bands I have seen live, featuring two members wearing head designs that are very hard to describe but is something along the lines of a black and white monochrome cyclops, with pure screaming vocals most the way through and an amazing drummer with amazing rhythm.
Merchandise: 10/10, PRESIDENT, since their beginning have had amazing merch designs, with their selection on this tour featuring some wonderfully designed t shirts, long sleeves and a hoodie, I picked up a long sleeve, for a very good price, with some of the nicest quality and designs I’ve seen in a while.
Crowd: 10/10, One of the most energetic crowds I’ve been in, with some amazing moshing, with great moshing etiquette, and some of the nicest people that I had quite a few pleasant conversations with over the course of the night.
Overall: 10/10, PRESIDENT have proved why they deserved all the buzz that was around them when they first came out, delivering one of the best concerts I’ve seen yet, certainly a band I hope continue for a long time so I can catch them on many more tours to come.
Next up: Bleech 9:3 Whelan’s 1/5/26
Jays Concert Blog 