L’Imperatrice @ Ogden Theatre – The Empress’ New Voice

Photo courtesy UNITED TALENT AGENCY, LLC (UTA)

Yooo what good G’s it’s ERIC, hope y’all are having a good 2025! Just saw L’Imperatrice at the Ogden Theatre for my first show of the new year and it was fireeee.  Gotta be honest, I really thought the band was canned when lead singer Flore announced her departure. But it’s 2025 and L’imperatrice hasn’t skipped a beat; touring their new record, Pulsar, with new lead singer Louve. 

Gonna be honest, part of me felt guilty for showing up last night cause the press surrounding Flore’s departure wasn’t exactly positive, buuuut I figure she’s still gets tour royalties from that she’ll use to cut her own masterpiece. Plus, Erick the Architect was opening  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  and I’m fired up I got to see him cause he was prolly one of the hypest openers I’ve seen in a long time. His features on Channel Tres’ “Ambrosia” and Jungle’s “Candle Flame” both appear on my 2023 Wrapped and are still some of my favorite tracks today. 

The Ogden is quite small and was packed to the brim, but it’s seriously a special place. I also liked that people of all ages pulled up despite a really cold Monday in Denver—there was lil 6 yr old kid wearing some noise cancelling headphones on his dad’s shoulders which was adorable. Also S/O to the engineers that dealt with the multiple technical difficulties throughout the show, that cannot be fun…

Louve – the singer that stepped in for Flore – absolutely killed it and it did not feel like her first gig. Covering the whole stage and doing some really charming crowd work, she definitely found a home in those lyrics. Vocally I do miss Flore a bit, but huuuuge ups to Louve for filling some big shoes. I think general the set showed much higher energy than I was expecting; it’s hard to say, but it felt like they increased the tempo about 5 bpms for each track.

I was floored about an hour in when this deep brassy bourdon went off. There are only two popular songs (that I know of) that open out like that—Daft Punk’s Aerodynamic and AC/DC’s Hells Bells—and it makes a ton of sense that it was the former. After one last technical difficulty and a slightly longer wait than anyone anticipated, the band waved off with “Vanille Fraise” and that unreleased “Piano Track Killer.” For everyone that didn’t get to see them play that night, they comin’ back to Red Rocks in Aprilllllllll. 

Track of the night: “Aerodynamic” (L’imperatrice Cover )- Daft Punk