Gig Review: Press Club
Esquires, Bedford, UK
8th July, 2025
Press Club are one of those bands that came out of nowhere for me. When Headwreck popped up as a single in 2018 on a Spotify list, it immediately made me sit up and listen. There’s a raw energy to the band, in large part due to the force-of-nature personality of their lead singer, Natalie Foster, that smacks you in the face and leaves you wanting more.
I managed to catch Press Club on their first UK tour at The Islington in 2019, and already you could tell this was a band who weren’t messing around. In the last six years, they’ve clearly honed their craft to an impeccable standard. Playing to a mostly full room in a back street in Bedford, they seemed to treat this as if they were playing Brixton Academy. Coming on stage to an instrumental of I Am Everything, the band launched straight in to a blistering set packed with bangers from their four albums.
One of the things that really surprised me was how up for it the crowd were, with at least half of them singing along to almost every song. Even if you didn’t have a thorough knowledge of their back catalogue, the band’s energy made you wish you knew every word. Foster threw herself around the stage, venturing into the crowd no less than five or six times, keeping everyone in absolute thrall. I can only imagine her cardio routine to be that active onstage while still manage to hit every note with power and accuracy, her voice soaring over the band.
And the thing is, with a lead singer so magnetic, you’d forgive the rest of the band if they faded into the background. However, Iain MacRae was absolutely slamming the bass, not content to stand still, with scissor kicks galore and great bass face. Greg Rietwyk utterly shredded the guitar, and I’m in awe of how beautifully clean and loud that guitar tone was at every point. And Frank Lees on drums… how that man isn’t dying of a heart attack at every gig, I don’t know. Lees destroyed that kit, hitting every beat with such passion and vigour it’d make other drummers cower. The band are so incredibly tight, it’s a wonder to watch.
How Press Club haven’t hit the heady heights that bands like Amyl and the Sniffers have, I have no idea. Even though they were playing to just under a hundred people in a back street in Bedford, they deserved to be playing Brixton Academy.
Tracks to check out: Headwreck, Suburbia, Untitled Wildlife, No Pressure