Noticing that the date had changed here in the Eastern Time Zone, 9AM will mark an important anniversary.

Of course, I refer to my Four-year anniversary as an employee of Forum One.

What, you think I meant something else?

Well, at least this isn’t as awkward as my first anniversary when the boss congratulated me on the way to the local pub to see our first TV images from the day.

“Uhh…thanks…” was all I could manage at that one.

Today it was much easier, as it was commented on the day before the anniversary, and I think the last two anniversaries of 9/11/01 have gotten most of the memorializing out of people.

This, I think, is a good thing. Americans don’t do well when we dwell on the past overmuch. Just look at…well, the entire American South for a textbook example. In fact, I’m not sure anybody does that well–Serbia still celebrates a great defeat on the battlefield from 500 years ago…and since the battlefield happens to be in Kosovo, that was an almost direct cause of the horrors of Bill Clinton’s brush with unilateralism in the 90s.

I don’t want to become Serbia–which is one reason I’m not sure I like the World War II memorial in the middle of the Mall in Washington, DC. We should remember our wars but not wallow in them.

However, that doesn’t seem likely, given John “I served in Viet Nam!” Kerry and George “Iraq is not Viet Nam!” Bush and the Swiftboat Vets and the Memos that may be 30 years or 30 days old.

Of course, the latest memo looks especially damning, though experts have some doubts about the letter spacing.

Anyway, happy anniversary to Oscar and myself, the lone survivors of the four who joined that day. We will po’ a fo’ty on da groun’ fo’ our fallen homiez.

So I saw Yes in Allentown, PA on Friday night, and I loved the concert. It included some of the best lick-trading I’ve ever heard from any band in any genre between Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman.

However, as I went to write a post to crow about it, I looked up the set lists on Forgotten Yesterdays, a fan site that tracks the set lists of every venue the band has ever played. When I bought the Allentown tickets, it was the closest venue to DC.

Of course, I found out that they played the Nissan Pavilion just a few days earlier, and they played some songs I’ve never heard the band play, especially not in the classic configuration they’re in now (same as recorded Tales from Topographic Oceans and Going for the One). On the other hand I wouldn’t have heard the aforementioned lick-trading on their cover of Paul Simon’s America, though I heard this lineup play that in 2002.

On the other hand, I’ve heard Steve Howe play The Clap before, and I really don’t care if I hear this bunch play Owner of a Lonely Heart, though it would have been interesting. Hopefully I’ll run across a bootleg, the phenomenon to which the concert program was a paean.

I do regret not having heard this bunch do Close to the Edge, though again I heard 4/5ths of this lineup play that in 2000. I also wish they’d played their cover of Every Little Thing, as I generally like Beatles tunes when played by anybody but the Beatles.

On the plus side, I finally got to hear this lineup play Roundabout, which, as Jack Black noted, has the best organ solo ever…with Karn Evil 9, First Impression, Part 2 being a close second. But I didn’t get to hear Long Distance Runaround.

One thing this concert had which no other I’ve been to (I’ve been to six now, from February 2, 1988 to the present) has had: a Roger Dean stage design. This was inflatable, for shipping and cost reasons, the program said. There were pipe-organ like structures behind Rick, automated drums around Alan, something very like the tree-like structures from Steve’s solo album Beginnings behind him, and a spider/manta ray/bird thing above Jon and Chris. Very trippy and cool, in white with black and grey accents. The bird thing flapped during Awaken, if I recall correctly. Or possibly it was trying to eat Jon. Either way, it moved in time with the music. Chris whipped out his Spinal Tap-like three-necked guitar (guitar, bass, and fretless bass) for Awaken.

All in all, I had a wonderful time, and Yes proved that at age 60, which Jon Anderson turns this year (impossible to believe, he still moves around like an elf with the enthusiasm of a hippy kid), they can still produce incredible, energetic music.

Update: Forgot to mention, Dream Theater opened. I hit traffic and only got to hear the last few songs of their set. It was OK, but for whatever reason, they have never thrilled me much. A little too much high school metal band self-seriousness, not enough prog beyond “look at our cool licks and unison lines,” and definitely not enough successful metal rebellion/fun.

However, they’re still better than 99% of what’s on the radio. But then I don’t listen to the radio, either.