POP MUSIC REVIEW : Yes Switches Musical Gears Adroitly at Inglewood Forum

If the idea was for a 20-year-old progressive-rock band not to sound too regressive , then Yes pulled it off pretty well Wednesday night at the Inglewood Forum.

Especially if you treated Jon Anderson’s voice as another instrument--the way the band often has over the years--rather than keying on those relentlessly dippy lyrics. (See “Love Will Find a Way” and “Holy Lamb (Song for Harmonic Convergence),” to pick two loony tunes from the new “Big Generator” LP that were performed Wednesday.)

But musically, Yes planted itself on much firmer ground. Throughout the two-hour set, the group shifted with remarkable precision from soft, subtle textures--sonic pastels, if you will--to muscular, propulsive passages anchored by drummer by Alan White and bassist Chris Squire.

Of course, the group has always been adept at switching musical gears. What stood out about the playing Wednesday was that Yes clearly sees itself not as a veteran quintet that happens to have a new album out, but as a wholly contemporary member of the current rock scene--and wanted the audience to see them the same way, too.

The first clue that this was no rickety old outfit hobbling from arena to arena, dusting off the early classics: The band opened with the new “Rhythm of Love” from “Generator,” moving into “Hold On” (from the previous LP, 1983’s “90125”). The pattern was set, the group drawing heavily from those two albums, with classic Yessongs popping up only occasionally. In fact, aside from one oldie (“Heart of the Sunrise”) nothing in the first hour pre-dated “90125.” And the group passed entirely on such hyper-extended zone-poems as “Close to the Edge.”

But the single best indication that Yes isn’t taking itself quite as seriously these days surfaced before the show actually started: The band showed some vintage “Popeye” cartoons, which beats the heck out of songs for harmonic convergence any day.