August 28, 2025

August 28, 2025

The year is 2010. My first full year as a prog fan. It was also my first year as a teenager. My skin is so oily you can see it shining off my forehead. See? Anyway, the photo for today’s entry is of me during my very first trip to one of my favorite concert venues, the Los Angeles Orpheum Theatre. I would go on to see a wide variety of bands there as the years went on. In this photo, I’m posing on the balcony with Keith Emerson and Greg Lake’s stage setup as my backdrop, and as you can see, I could barely contain my excitement. My dad had bought me that Tarkus shirt from the merch stand a few minutes earlier. Believe it or not, I still have that shirt and, with it being oversized, am happy to report that it still fits me. It didn’t take long for my presence there to capture the attention of some of the older concertgoers. 2010 is rightfully considered the Year of Prog by me, because there was a ton of discovery that year. My journey began with Pink Floyd, and it was through them that I was introduced to a whole new world of musical possibilities. From there, I went on to welcome bands like ELP, King Crimson and Yes into my life. Album after album, my impressionable mind was repeatedly blown, pieced back together, and then blown again These musicians did things I never even knew were possible with their instruments. Where did all of these bizarre time signatures come from? What was a pedal steel guitar? The questions piled up, the answers sometimes presenting themselves.