Federal Theatre Opens in Denver With Chicano Funk and Latin Rock Power: Review

The marquee of the Federal Theatre is glowing neon once again.

The venue’s grand opening on September 19 was marked by a free concert with two of Denver’s top Latin bands: Los Mocochetes and iZCALLi. A long line had formed at the venue by 7:30 p.m., and a notice on its website said it had reached enough RSVPs to be at full capacity.

The opening has been highly anticipated, as the venue at 3830 Federal Boulevard has been vacant for years. The former movie theater, which opened in the 1920s and received an Art Deco remodeling in 1948, had closed in the 1970s. “It was sort of largely nothing for fifty years,” co-owner Scott Happel told us. “A church utilized it as a space for the last ten or twenty years, but it’s not clear how much they used it. The church left in January 2023, and the landlords gave us a call.”

He and fellow owners, Andy Bercaw and Peter Ore, are no strangers to revamping Denver venues: They also own the Oriental Theater, and Bercaw and Happel own HQ. And as we saw at the Federal’s grand opening, they’ve now made another slam dunk. The 650-capacity venue was packed to the brim, as concert-goers danced along the sloped, carpeted floor and soaked up the impressive sound system.

“Make some noise if you’re Indigenous!” encouraged Los Mocochetes frontman Joshua Randy Abeyta, after acknowledging the venue was on Indigenous land. The majority of the audience roared.

“Now make some noise if you’re from the Northside!” he added, and the crowd was ecstatic.

The band, whose sound blends Latin rhythms and pride with psychedelic rock, put on an epic performance that had everyone dancing throughout the set, despite the swell of heat suffocating the venue. Soon enough, most of the members’ shirts were off, although lead vocalist Joser “Jozer” Guerrero still kept an impressive rotation of lucha libre masks on his face. The Federal’s sound is superb, and the audience was enveloped in the live music, sometimes taking a break to stop at one of the two bars under backlit ceilings painted like the sky. But not for long: Los Mocochetes would pull you right back in with its funky beats.

Headliner iZCALLi put on quite the show as well, as anyone familiar with the music scene would expect. Frontman Miguel Aviña possessed the audience with his swoon-worthy vocals, propped up by the basslines of his sister, Brenda. With the band decked out in white, the members seemed to emit a radiant glow from the stage, where they shared their signature sonics that meld Latin rock with surfy sounds and hard rock.

It was the perfect lineup for this Northside venue: two community-oriented bands that put activism at the forefront of their music. Both outside and inside the Federal, people were beaming with impressed smiles. After decades of emptiness, the theater is now overflowing with live music: Signs in the venue listed upcoming shows including Reverend Horton Heat on Halloween, Guttermouth on October 18, Great American Ghost on November 22 and more.

Most of all, though, the grand opening showcased the Federal Theatre’s unique position to become a community bastion. “We need to provide fun places for people to come,” Happel told us, “and we need to people to want to come out and have a good time.”

The Northside certainly obliged.

There’s another free show at the Federal tonight, September 20; see more photos from the September 19 grand opening below: