Walking up to the Egyptian Theater on Sunday would make even those immune to Hollywood’s eccentricities question their current longitude and latidional coordinates. It’s not every day that you arrive to an event and are greeted by flocks of Elvis impersonators and handed an official “King-o” game card. This was beyond the bizarre of the usual chaos of Hollywood Boulevard.

The wigs, star-studded attire, and nostalgic tunes brought Angelenos to the confines of Hollywood’s renowned Egyptian Theater to pay tribute to “The King” by means of celebrating Elvis Presley’s 75th birthday in a big way.  The evening kicked off around 5:30pm with a pre-party in the courtyard, featuring Elvis tunes, karaoke, and trivia, with food vendors serving delicacies such as banana-peanut butter pancake bites from the Buttermilk Truck and good ‘ol fashioned BBQ.  All guests in attendance were given a slice of an official Elvis birthday cake and many fans showed up that had clearly invested time into the event’s  “Dress to im-Presley” invitation advice, appearing as Elvis clones.

Tourists and passerby’s couldn’t help but stop and stare while festivities such as an Elvis tune inspired guessing game titled “A Little Less Conversation” took place.  The Elvis-infused bingo, aka “King-o” was a huge hit, as guests were asked to walk through the party and mingle with other fans to engage in Elvis based conversation.  Spaces on the bingo sheet were earned once guests were able to say that they had conversed with someone that had performed some Elvis related task such as: seen Elvis in concert, owned blue suede shoes, or sampled the King’s trademark peanut butter and bacon sandwich (yuck)!  As the evening progressed, the crowd started to migrate inside and 7:30pm brought an Elvis Presley Double Feature of Elvis ’56 followed by Jailhouse Rock. The event was full of fun, glitz, and emotion, and left quite a few Elvis fans “all shook up.”

Words by Nicole Jones