President are headlining Takedown festival in 2026.
The masked metal bunch have just been announced for the two-day event at the Portsmouth Guildhall on the UK’s south coast, taking place on April 3 and 4.
They’ll top the bill on Saturday, with the Friday being capped off by former Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell and his solo band the Bastard Sons, who’ll play an all-Motörhead setlist.
Tickets to Takedown are on sale now. See next year’s poster below.
Takedown festival is an annual fixture at the 2,500-capacity Guildhall, headlined this year by the Kris Barras Band, Ferocious Dog and the Elvis-impersonator-fronted Nirvana tribute band Elvana. No other acts for the 2026 edition have been revealed.
The announcement continues what’s been an impressive debut year for President. The band first announced themselves in February, when they were spotted on the poster for Download festival, and shortly afterwards they launched a mysterious countdown on their website. Internet sleuths soon discovered that the outfit were managed by the same company as fellow masked metal breakout stars Sleep Token, resulting in international attention.
Download’s Dogtooth stage was overflowing when President made their live debut in June, and the band’s ‘inaugural address’ (first headline show) on July 30 at The Garage in London quickly sold out. They have ‘rallies’ scheduled for New York and Los Angeles in December, to be followed by a tour of Australia supporting Architects later that month. In January and February, they’ll play across Europe with Architects, and in April they’re set to tour the UK on a headline run that’s already totally sold-out.
Metal Hammer recently interviewed President’s frontman, also known as ‘President’, and found out that the band’s music is inspired by a crisis of faith he suffered after leaving behind organised religion.
“When you’re institutionalised into something and you eventually get out of it, you end up wondering, ‘How much of this is what I think, and how much is what I was told to think?’” he told us. “President is the perfect way for me to explore these feelings and not have it feel like ‘me’ who has the spotlight on them.”
President have only released four songs, the latest being last week’s Destroy Me. The tracks will all appear on their debut EP King Of Terrors, set to come out on September 26. Two as-yet-unreleased songs, Dionysus and Conclave, will round out the tracklisting.
