The show started with a light haze as three young musicians stepped into the limelight.

The Moore Brothers Band is a trio of young musicians from North Carolina who came to perform for the Charleston community Saturday in the Theatre in the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

The trio consists of Daniel Perry, 21, Jacob Moore, 17 and Isaac Moore, 13, who met at the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2010.

Since then, the three have performed at hundreds of shows.

Pattie Moore, the mother of Jacob and Isaac, was also at the concert.

“The performance was good,” Pattie Moore said. “The boys did some new material which was good and I thought they did a good job”

The band performed in front of a crowd of about 70 people.

“It’s been a lot of fun, we’ve really enjoyed coming up to the more Northwest area,” Jacob Moore said. “It’s been a lot of great people and the campus atmosphere and the facilities were wonderful. This was one of the nicest stages and theatres we’ve seen in a long time.”

Daniel Perry, the oldest of the trio, said everyone in Doudna really helped them out a lot during the performance.

Though the other two musicians are related, Perry is not.

“The crew and everybody that’s helped us out and has been facilitating us since we’ve been here has just been incredible,” Perry said. “The Doudna center, the acoustics and the way they can really hone in our sound was just incredible. Overall, I think it’s a ten out of ten being out here.”

In between songs, the band interacted with audience members by telling a few jokes to get them excited for the next act.

Carole Everett, a Charleston resident, said she really enjoyed herself at the show.

“I was very impressed. I was amazed at how young they were and how well they could play,” Everett said. “Many comments here were how can you keep your fingers from getting sore from playing all that much time. It was very impressive to see young people so dedicated to do such a good job.”

Dwight Vaught, the assistant dean of the college of arts and humanities, walked on stage before the band to say how he heard the band perform on TV, and now 18 months later, they were performing at Eastern.

“I think it went great, they’re the kind of performers that we wanted to connect with not only the university, but also the community and the younger people,” Vaught said. “I think it was a great opening.”

Some of the songs the band performed Saturday night included their own songs like “Osmosis”, “He’ll Walk With You” and “The Diffusion.”

The trio even performed classic songs like the Blue Brother’s “Sweet Home Chicago” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Good Luck, Bad Luck” with their own spin on the songs.

“I think it was a really good audience, the longer the show went I think they were really getting into it, and we were too,” Jacob Moore said. “I think they really enjoyed it, and we had a lot of fun playing for them.”

Perry said they were surprised at the turnout given this was there first time performing in Illinois.

“We were really surprised, I mean, being from North Carolina. I thought it was a great turnout,” Perry said. “I would have been surprised to see 50 people there for us.”

The trio closed out their Doudna performance with one of their own songs “Magic Carpet Ride,” and received a standing ovation from everyone in attendance.

“I know that Doudna, they had fliers all over the place,” Perry said. “They’ve done a great job getting us out there.”

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or lpmartinez@eiu.edu