Penn’s Peak is proud to announce An Evening with ASIA!!

Asia began with the demise of 2 major British progressive rock bands, Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer and King Crimson and The Buggles.   After some reorganization and a disappointing start, Asia’s debut album (March 1982) exploded onto the music scene.  This album featured several Top 10 Singles and sales exceeded 7 million copies.  Asia consisted of Steve Howe (Yes), Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake and Palmer), John Wetton (King Crimson) and Geoff Downes (The Buggles).  Their first album, Asia, spent 9 weeks at #1 on the US album chart and was named album of the year by Billboard.  Two songs released from Asia became Top 10 hits, “Only Time Will Tell” and “Heat of The Moment.” 

With the release of Asia, the band only had weeks to rehearse for a 30 city US tour.  On May 5th, the band was on their 12th stop of the tour, and their album reached #1 on the Billboard charts.  To even further help them along, this was the same year that MTV premiered.  Asia began shooting videos as soon as the album was finished.  The results were amazing and Asia became one of the most played acts on MTV in 1982.  By the time Asia released their second album; the debut album sold over 6 million copies worldwide and was the best seller of 1982.  The band continued touring non-stop. 

Soon after, Wetton and Howe were arguing over the direction of Asia and Wetton briefly left the group in 1983.  He soon came back, but by then Howe had had enough and he decided to leave.  Over the next few years Asia would go through many changes in their lineup, but they still kept on playing and producing new music.  It was not until 1992 when they had their comeback album, Aqua, that Downes found a new lease on life.  Howe and Palmer were featured as guests on the Aqua album, but fans thought they were members of Asia and their presence was well received by the fans.  They went on to release four more albums until 2001.  Unfortunately, no other albums were able to capture the success of the debut, Asia.  Their highly anticipated new album, Omega, which is full of original material, drops in spring of 2010.  John Wetton explains about the title of the album, “The title Omega, as any fan of the band will tell you is ‘very Asia’ (as is the album, by the way).  It no more means ‘final’ than ‘Alpha’ means ‘the first’ (which it wasn’t).  It’s a great sounding/looking word, and a bookend to ‘Alpha’.  In many ways, musically and conceptually, the two albums share commonality.” 

“This is the REAL ASIA,” says guitarist Steve Howe.  “There have been other versions of the band, but this original line-up is the one that the public truly embraced.  Since we only toured for a couple of years, it will be nice, finally, to play for audiences all over the world, many of whom never had a chance to see the group in concert.” 

Come out to Penn’s Peak on August 5th and see if you think the new music is still the old Asia!!

Tickets go on sale Saturday, April 10th at 10:00 am at all Ticketmaster outlets and at the Penn’s Peak Ticket Office.  Penn’s Peak ticket sales are walk-up only, no phone orders.