One of the reasons live music affects me so much is because I get to observe how much music affects the performers themselves.  When I watch musicians perform I am privy to everything from their fillings that are exposed when they are singing and smiling wide-mouthed, to the stickers (or fake mustaches in Elvis Perkins’s case) they put on their guitars, to their teeming eyes to their tapping feet. All of these details are extra icing on the already delicious cake of musical performance.

There was no shortage of cake or icing at M-Theory Music last Sunday for Elvis Perkins’ free in store performance. Elvis, along with his three band mates, came equipped with a host of instruments ranging from a stand up base to a presumably cheap, but incredibly effective and endearing, yellow plastic flute complete with a red plastic bird inside of a cage that twittered up and down.

For the next thirty minutes Elvis Perkins In Dearland played songs from their new eponymous album, Elvis Perkins In Dearland, that was released this Spring. They strummed with closed eyes masked by purple lenses, they banged on bass drums with Ray Bans on, there were bearded mouths on brass and it was haunting and happy all at once.

The band was gracious and delighted to be playing, you could see it all throughout their movements their faces, and feel it in the music. The audience who was sandwiched between old records and body odor and then, the remainders that were flowing out the doors of M-Theory, reciprocated with equal adoration. It was a musical experience, free for the taking.

Dearland and its people were affected in all the right ways. We left content and with our bellies bursting with perfectly iced cake.