asia reunion tour

Geoff Downes announces John Wetton An Extraordinary Life book

Jan 25, 2023

ABOUT THE BOOK

Musician, songwriter, singer and “top bloke” (as Geoff Downes describes him), John Wetton lived a truly extraordinary life. In this book some seventy-plus people who knew and worked with John, from Family, King Crimson, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash, Roxy Music, U.K., Asia, the John Wetton solo band and beyond, pay tribute to that fact. Other contributors hail from the music industry and have compelling tributes to pay, equal to those from friends who knew John for decades, and his family.

Among the stories of friendship, music and sometimes craziness are reflections on what made John Wetton such an unforgettable man. His friends and family do not steer clear of his problems but rather explain the why, how, and triumph over them in honest and touching recollections. Scattered among the stories are personal and classic photos of John at work and play which add to the celebration of An Extraordinary Life.

https://johnwettonbook.com

Remember John Wetton – Five Years Later

Jan 30, 2022

Five years have gone by since the day that broke the hearts of countless John Wetton fans.

Five years since John said goodbye, changing life as we know it, and leaving a void behind which could be filled only by the immortal notes of his music.

Five years that saw the world going through an unprecedented test and being frozen in its steps, for long, silent months.

As the planet laid dormant and ran frantic at the same time, the world of JW took a respectful step back, putting projects on hold and waiting for everything to heal. However, the die was cast and the quiet times gave many of John’s friends, family and associates a chance to reflect and pay tribute, contributing their personal stories to the creation of the ultimate homage to his immense creative talent.

Like in all the best stories, there’s laughter, tears, love, passion, angels and demons, the roller coaster of, you guessed it, an extraordinary life.

Thoughts from Geoff Downes : Right now I am thinking back to what is exactly 5 years since we lost my great friend and musical collaborator, John Wetton. Not a day goes by without raising a thought to his memory. I miss his company greatly, not just in musical terms but also his wonderful sense of humour and friendship. That is something I will always cherish. But with that sadness, comes great joy that I was blessed with his presence in my life. The many songs we wrote together are timeless, and will hopefully be played, enjoyed and remembered for all eternity. That alone is cause for celebration. So John, I salute you dear friend. “Ride Easy” and “Till We meet Again”. GD x

ASIA Announces 40th Anniversary Celebration

Jan 29, 2022

ASIA with original members Carl Palmer & Geoff Downes Announces 40th Anniversary Celebration

ASIA, one of the greatest and best-loved supergroups to emerge during the 1980s is currently preparing for an extensive 40th Anniversary celebration, due to kick off in summer 2022. Featuring founding members  Carl Palmer  (ELP, Crazy World of Arthur Brown) and  Geoff Downes  (Yes, The Buggles) the group will also include long time bassist/ vocalist  Billy Sherwood  (Yes) and newest member, guitarist/ lead vocalist  Marc Bonilla , (Solo artist, Keith Emerson Band). The band is currently being booked for a US tour to start late summer this year.

“40 years of ASIA is a real musical milestone for us,” says Geoff Downes. “The success we experienced with our early albums has carried us through and gave us the foundation when we reformed in 2006. ASIA has been together ever since, although we lost John in 2017 to cancer. Still, we have endured and will carry on now with Marc Bonilla, who we know will be a great addition to the band.”

“The fans have never left ASIA,” says drummer Carl Palmer. “That first ASIA album with all those radio and MTV hits weaved the fabric of the music scene in the early 1980s. Those great songs like ‘ Heat Of The Moment,’ ‘Sole Survivor,’ and ‘Only Time Will Tell,’ still hold up today. When we play those songs and our other hits, we can see the entire audience singing along.”

In December the multi-platinum selling English supergroup released its most ambitious collection to date: a 10-CD boxset  The Official Live Bootlegs Volume 1 . Issued through BMG Records on December 3rd, the expansive set chronicles five complete performances of the original line-up captured between 1982 and 2010. The collection celebrates the huge appeal of the concert tours that followed ASIA’s first two albums in 1982 and 1983. The success continued following ASIA’s 25th anniversary reunion in 2006 and three more highly acclaimed albums. The slipcase boxset features 5 x 2CD concerts from 1982 (Buffalo, NY, USA), 1983 (Worcester, MA, USA), 2007 (São Paulo, Brazil), 2008 (Tokyo, Japan) and 2010 (London, UK). The bootleg collection follows a previous 5 CD box set of studio recordings released in April, 2021.

ABOUT ASIA :  Geoff Downes  (The Buggles, Yes, keyboards),  Steve Howe  (Yes, guitars),  Carl Palmer  (Emerson, Lake & Palmer, drums) and  John Wetton  (King Crimson, UK, bass/vocals), took the world by storm with their eponymous debut album, globally the biggest-selling album of 1982, and the single  Heat Of The Moment . ASIA   was a true ‘supergroup’ pooling the talents of its four members who had already amassed tens of millions of record sales with their collective bands of the 70s. Leaving behind their progressive roots, ASIA embraced the commercial FM rock sound that dominated US airwaves and took that, and the new MTV video channel, by storm. The single  Heat Of The Moment  was a world-wide monster smash and their eponymous 1982 debut album spent an incredible 9 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard chart as  ASIA  became the biggest selling album of the year and world tour dates sold out.

A second album,  Alpha , was released in 1983, followed by  Astra  in 1985. The four original members reconvened in 2006 for a world tour, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that incredible success, and the album  Phoenix  followed. While the members were still heavily involved in other projects, they came together again to record  Omega  in 2010 and  XXX  in 2012, both albums were acclaimed by their faithful fans and supported by more world tours. Steve Howe stepped back from ASIA to concentrate on his work with Yes and was absent for 2014’s  Gravitas . Following this tour came the news of John Wetton’s treatment for cancer, a fight he sadly lost in 2017. Asia was special guest of Journey for an extensive US tour in 2017, and in 2019 the band toured with Yes within the Royal Affair tour.

“We are planning an extensive tour to celebrate our 40th,” adds Downes, “and the music will feature all the hits the fans have embraced. Stay tuned! It will be show you won’t want to miss.”

ASIA THE OFFICIAL LIVE BOOTLEGS – VOLUME 1 is available where records are sold or ORDER HERE .

The new ASIA set to embark on 2019 “Royal Affair” Tour with Yes, John Lodge Band, and Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy.

Apr 2, 2019

Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal joins line-up as new singer/ guitarist.

Original guitarist and former member STEVE HOWE to make guest appearance each night.

The dragon has risen again.

Two years after the band’s critically acclaimed and successful US trek opening for Journey, an all-new ASIA line-up will return to concert stages across North America as special guests of the YES “ROYAL AFFAIR” tour. The influential British Rock band that rose to the top of the charts with its initial albums and a number of hits including “Only Time Will Tell,” “Heat Of The Moment,” “Don’t Cry,” and “Sole Survivor,” returns with a new line-up that includes founding members Carl Palmer on drums, Geoff Downes on keyboards and backing vocals, and current Yes bassist Billy Sherwood .

Joining the band for the first time is lead guitarist and vocalist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, an acclaimed solo artist and former member of Guns N Roses for eight years. Thal is also in the prog-rock band Sons Of Apollo.

The invitation to join the band came from both Palmer and Downes, after Geoff had worked with him in a project called The Platinum Rock All Stars. “Ron is a remarkably innovative guitarist,” says Downes, “with a multi-range lead vocal ability. I believe it will give our material a whole new dimension.”

Also appearing on the tour with YES and ASIA, will be Moody Blues member John Lodge and his band and Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy, with special guest vocalist, Arthur Brown. Founding member and original guitarist Steve Howe will join ASIA on stage each night on the Royal Affair tour to play on a few of the band’s biggest hits and honor the memory of his friend, John Wetton. It will mark the first time Howe has performed with the band since his departure in 2013.

Asia’s debut album exploded onto the music scene in April 1982, featuring Billboard top 10 classics amongst six radio hits. It became the best-selling album in the World in 1982. Featuring Geoff Downes on keyboards, Steve Howe on guitar, Carl Palmer on drums and John Wetton on lead vocal and bass, Asia was the logical successor to their collective bands of the 70s – Yes, ELP, King Crimson, UK and The Buggles.

Asia became one of the most played acts during the first year of MTV. Throughout most of ’82, Asia ruled the radio airwaves and MTV, selling out every date on tour as the debut album crushed all the competition in record stores around the World.

The original line-up of ASIA reformed in 2006. It was the first time the four original members had worked together in 23 years. After Howe’s departure, the band regrouped in 2013, with guitarist Sam Coulson and a new studio album, Gravitas, followed. Tragedy struck in January 2017, when John Wetton lost a valiant battle against cancer, just as the band was about to embark on a 43 date tour opening arena shows for JOURNEY. Despite this huge loss, the band recruited old friend bassist Billy Sherwood from YES and completed the tour, triumphantly. In 2018, Coulson left the line-up to concentrate on solo projects, with sincere gratitude from ASIA for his five years of contributions.

“”The original members of Asia were progressive musical heroes of mine,” says Ron Thal. “ It’s a great honor to be asked to play with these legendary musicians with a legacy of great songs, and also contribute some of my own musical ideas. Very much looking forward to our time on the road together.”

“There is a great energy when we step on stage,” says Geoff Downes. “We can feel it and I know the fans can feel it.” For ASIA’s long-devoted fans, the band’s return to the concert stage cannot come soon enough.” And Downes confirms: “It is what John would have wanted”.

As Carl Palmer has said in the past: “Performing on stage is where this band truly comes into its element. Seeing the fans reacting to our music is what makes it all worthwhile. It is the fuel that drives this train we call ASIA.”

ASIA on THE 2019 “ROYAL AFFAIR TOUR” with Yes, The John Lodge Band, and Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy with Arthur Brown.

TO PURCHASE TICKETS: www.yesworld.com/live

MORE DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED!

Watch the promotional film about the ROYAL AFFAIR TOUR:

Remembering John Wetton

Jan 30, 2019

Two years ago, John Wetton passed away after an extended battle with cancer. John remained optimistic throughout, and expessed excitement about an upcoming tour with Journey. He is missed immensely, but the musical legacy he left behind continues to be celebrated—it remains a cherished part of so many lives.

An extensive and modular box set celebrating John’s life and legacy will be released this year, including new contributions from John’s many peers around the world.  Stay tuned to @officialjwetton and @qedgmanagement for news as it happens.  

Wetton Downes’ iCon Trilogy of Studio Albums Re-Released with Bonus Tracks

Jun 13, 2018

The John Wetton Estate and Geoffrey Downes are pleased to announce the re-release of the iCon Trilogy of albums, now remastered with bonus tracks in six panel digipacks.

The re-releases have been personally overseen by Geoff Downes and are intended to be a return to the marketplace of individual albums for fans who may wish to purchase a definitive edition.

Of his song-writing relationship and the formation of iCon, Geoff Downes says,  “Throughout my entire career, there is no doubt in my mind, that some of my proudest achievements have been the songs that I wrote with the late John Wetton. Not only were we great friends, but also blood brothers in the song-writing department…We also had the luxury of working with some of the finest musicians in the world who were willing participants in the project.”

Please visit Geoff’s web site  for more details and ordering information.

Journey/Asia Dinner

Jul 11, 2017

Shown here (Standing L to R) Bruce Pilato (Asia tour mgr); Madison Cain; Journey’s Jonathan Cain; Journey’s Steve Smith; Asia’s Geoff Downes. (Seated L to R) Asia’s Sam Coulson; Journey’s Ross Vallory; Ken Silva (Journey Tour Accountant) and Asia’s Carl Palmer.

The members of ASIA and JOURNEY  (bands and crews) recently took time from their sold out US tour to have a dinner together at the trendy Pappas Bros Steakhouse in Houston, Texas.  A great time was had by all.

Drummers Having Fun

Jun 21, 2017

Fox Rochester Speaks with Carl and Geoff

Jun 16, 2017

Carl and Geoff Discuss Asia Show at Bergen Performing Arts Center

Current Line-up

– Carl Palmer – Geoff Downes – Billy Sherwood – Marc Bonilla

We Remember

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© The Original Members of Asia

Asia get ready for 40th anniversary tour

Geoff Downes and Carl Palmer reunite under Asia banner for live dates for 2022

Carl Palmer and Geoff Downes will tour together as Asia for a 40th anniversary tour later this year. They will be joined by current Yes bassist Billy Sherwood and former Keith Emerson guitarist Marc Bonilla.

"We are planning an extensive tour to celebrate our 40th anniversary," says Downes. "The music will feature all the hits the fans have embraced. 40 years of Asia is a real musical milestone for us. The success we experienced with our early albums has carried us through and gave us the foundation when we reformed in 2006. Asia has been together since, although we lost John in 2017 to cancer. Still we endured and we will carry on now with Marc Bonilla who we know will be a great addition to the band."

"The fans have never left Asia," adds Carl Palmer. "That first Asia album, with all the radio and MTV hits weaved the fabric of the music scene on the early 1980s. Those great sigs like Heat Of The Moment , Sole Survivor and Only Time Will Tell still hold up today. When we play those songs and our other hits, we can see the entire audience singing along."

Asia released their self-titled debut album in 1982, which went on to become the biggest selling album of the year. They followed it up with Alpha in 1983 and Astr a in 1985. Geoff Downes led a new line-up of the band through the 90s until the original four members, who also included Yes guitarist Steve Howe , reunited in 2006.

Greg Lake briefly replaced original singer and bassist John Wetton in 1983, while Steve Howe left the band prior to the Astra album, where he was replaced by former Krokus guitarist Mandy Meyer.

Asia recently released the ten-disc  The Official Live Bootlegs Volume 1  box set .

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Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.

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ASIA Feat. Original Members CARL PALMER And GEOFF DOWNES Announces 40th-Anniversary Celebration

ASIA , one of the greatest and best-loved supergroups to emerge during the 1980s, is currently preparing for an extensive 40th-anniversary celebration, due to kick off in summer 2022. Featuring founding members Carl Palmer ( ELP , CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN ) and Geoff Downes ( YES , THE BUGGLES ),the group will also include longtime bassist/ vocalist Billy Sherwood ( YES ) and newest member, guitarist/ lead vocalist Marc Bonilla , (solo artist, KEITH EMERSON BAND ). The band is currently being booked for a U.S. tour to start late summer this year.

"40 years of ASIA is a real musical milestone for us," says Downes . "The success we experienced with our early albums has carried us through and gave us the foundation when we reformed in 2006. ASIA has been together ever since, although we lost John in 2017 to cancer. Still, we have endured and will carry on now with Marc Bonilla , who we know will be a great addition to the band."

"The fans have never left ASIA ," says Palmer . "That first ASIA album with all those radio and MTV hits weaved the fabric of the music scene in the early 1980s. Those great songs like 'Heat Of The Moment' , 'Sole Survivor' and 'Only Time Will Tell' still hold up today. When we play those songs and our other hits, we can see the entire audience singing along."

In December the multi-platinum selling English supergroup released its most ambitious collection to date: a 10-CD boxset "The Official Live Bootlegs Volume 1" . Issued through BMG Records on December 3, the expansive set chronicles five complete performances of the original lineup captured between 1982 and 2010. The collection celebrates the huge appeal of the concert tours that followed ASIA 's first two albums in 1982 and 1983. The success continued following ASIA 's 25th-anniversary reunion in 2006 and three more highly acclaimed albums. The slipcase boxset features 5 x 2CD concerts from 1982 (Buffalo, NY, USA),1983 (Worcester, MA, USA),2007 (São Paulo, Brazil),2008 (Tokyo, Japan) and 2010 (London, UK). The bootleg collection follows a previous 5 CD box set of studio recordings released in April, 2021.

Downes , Steve Howe ( YES , guitars), Palmer and John Wetton ( KING CRIMSON , UK , bass/vocals),took the world by storm with ASIA 's eponymous debut album, globally the biggest-selling album of 1982, and the single "Heat Of The Moment" . ASIA was a true "supergroup", pooling the talents of its four members who had already amassed tens of millions of record sales with their collective bands of the 1970s. Leaving behind their progressive roots, ASIA embraced the commercial FM rock sound that dominated U.S. airwaves and took that, and the new MTV video channel, by storm. The single "Heat Of The Moment" was a worldwide monster smash and their eponymous 1982 debut album spent an incredible nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard chart as ASIA became the biggest-selling album of the year and world tour dates sold out.

A second album, "Alpha" , was released in 1983, followed by "Astra" in 1985. The four original members reconvened in 2006 for a world tour, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that incredible success, and the album "Phoenix" followed. While the members were still heavily involved in other projects, they came together again to record "Omega" in 2010 and "XXX" in 2012, both albums were acclaimed by their faithful fans and supported by more world tours. Howe stepped back from ASIA to concentrate on his work with YES and was absent for 2014's "Gravitas" . Following this tour came the news of Wetton 's treatment for cancer, a fight he sadly lost in 2017. ASIA was special guest of JOURNEY for an extensive U.S. tour in 2017, and in 2019 the band hit the road with YES for the "Royal Affair" tour.

"We are planning an extensive tour to celebrate our 40th," adds Downes , "and the music will feature all the hits the fans have embraced. Stay tuned! It will be show you won't want to miss."

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ASIA - All Four Original Members Reunite For 2006/07 World Tour; First Dates Announced

July 7, 2006, 17 years ago

news rock hard asia

All four original members of ASIA - Geoff Downes, Steve Howe, Carl Palmer and John Wetton - have reformed to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of their historic multi-platinum debut album.

Asia, the first supergroup to emerge with the dawn of the MTV-age, has reunited with its original line-up intact to celebrate the band's 25th anniversary. The founding members of Asia emerged from classic rock icons YES, EMERSON LAKE & PALMER, KING CRIMSON, and THE BUGGLES, and released one of the most enduring and commercially successful debut albums of all time, simply entitled Asia.

The reunion of the band's original line-up marks the first time all four founding members will be playing together since 1983. In addition to Asia hits including 'Heat Of The Moment', 'Only Time Will Tell', 'Sole Survivor', 'Don't Cry' and others, the band will play selections from their individual careers. Audiences can expect to hear such rock radio staples as 'Roundabout', (from Yes); 'In The Court Of The Crimson King' (from King Crimson); 'Video Killed The Radio Star', (from The Buggles); 'Fanfare For The Common Man' (from Emerson Lake & Palmer) and other rock classics.

VH1 Classic and Sirius Satellite Radio will present the tour, which has been viewed as one of the most anticipated reunion tours of the decade. Collectively as Asia, and in their various other bands, the four original members have sold over 200 million records since 1970.

The tour will take the supergroup to many cities and countries where it has never previously performed, starting with an intimate show at the Water Street Music Hall in Rochester, NY on August 29 th, in celebration of popular drive-time DJ Dave Kane's 25 th anniversary with radio station WCMF. Among the noted appearances on the tour will be:: two nights at the Nokia Theater in Times Square, Manhattan; Boston's legendary Avalon Ballroom; Trump Marina Casino in Atlantic City, NJ; and the House of Blues concert theater in Las Vegas, Nevada. The US tour will be followed by a trek through the band's native UK, ending December 3; and a nationwide tour of Japan in March next year. An extensive global tour throughout the remainder of 2007 will follow .

Adds Geoffrey Downes: “We've all remained dedicated to our craft of making compelling and powerful music. After many years apart, I think we all bring a new and very fresh attitude to the music from our initial studio recordings. I am looking forward to playing these songs on stage with these musicians, once again.”

Originally released on Geffen Records in 1982, the debut Asia album scored four Top 10 Billboard and Radio hits and stayed at the #1 spot on the Billboard Top 100 album chart for an astounding 9 weeks. Only a handful of albums such as PINK FLOYD's Dark Side Of The Moon and MICHAEL JACKSON's Thriller have been #1 on the Billboard charts for a longer time. Universal records will mount a worldwide catalogue campaign in celebration of Asia's landmark anniversary.

The initial leg of the 25 th Anniversary tour will include these shows and cities:

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Asia Reunion Albums Box Set Arrives: Listen

In 2006-2007, the band’s four original members – John Wetton (King Crimson, lead vocal/bass), Steve Howe (YES, guitars), Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer, drums) and Geoff Downes (The Buggles, YES, keyboards), reunited to celebrate their 25th anniversary with a world tour.

A live album from the tour, Fantasia, Live in Tokyo was released in 2007 as they returned to the studio together for the first time in a quarter of a century. The reunion would yield three albums Phoenix (2008), Omega (2010) and XXX (2012) as they celebrated their 30th anniversary.

Of these later albums Palmer said, “The chemistry and energy that comes out when the four of us are working together, is reflected in the new material.” For his part, Wetton marveled at how far the band had come. “The sound reflects the collective maturity of these four people who are not only eager to explore but also relaxed enough to luxuriate in the strength of the material.”

Listen to their instantly recognizable sound from 2008’s Phoenix

Fantasia, Live In Tokyo features many of the tracks from their first two albums Asia (1982) and Alpha (1983) together with classic rock tracks from each of the band members’ musical history.

Listen to two of those legacy tracks

ASIA took the music world by a storm with their self-titled debut album which spent nine weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart and, globally, was the biggest-selling album of 1982. The single, “Heat of the Moment,” a soft-rock anthem, reached the top 40 in over a dozen markets, peaking in the U.S. at #4 on the Hot 100.

BMG also plans to release a box set, ASIA in Asia , from 1983, with Greg Lake temporarily replacing John Wetton. (Lake passed in 2016. Wetton died  just over a month later in 2017.)

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1 Comment so far

The 3 studio albums, that the original lineup recorded after their reunion, are among the very best the band did. They deserve to be heard and appreciated by fans. Most songs were written by John Wetton and Geoff Downes; few by Steve Howe, who left the band again, and its the reason because they did record one last album without him. This last studio album, has a “harder edge” because the “new guitar player s´sound was stronger. I think its a good album, but can not stand the guitar sound.

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Multi-platinum selling English supergroup ASIA are to release a 10CD boxset  The Official Live Bootlegs Volume 1  through BMG Records on 26th November 2021. There will also be a digital album featuring a selection of 24 tracks taken from the full boxset, out on the same day.

Pre-order it here:- https://asiaband.lnk.to/OLB1PR

ASIA: Geoff Downes (The Buggles, YES, keyboards), Steve Howe (YES, guitars), Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer, drums) and John Wetton (King Crimson, UK, bass/vocals), took the world by storm with their eponymous debut album, globally the biggest-selling album of 1982, and the single Heat Of The Moment.

The Official Live Bootlegs Volume 1 celebrates the huge appeal of the concert tours that followed ASIA’s first two albums in 1982 and 1983.

The success continued following ASIA’s 25th anniversary reunion in 2006 and three more highly acclaimed albums. The slipcase boxset features 5 x 2CD concerts from 1982 (Buffalo, NY, USA), 1983 (Worcester, MA, USA), 2007 (São Paulo, Brazil), 2008 (Tokyo, Japan) and 2010 (London, UK).

This historical collection represents some of our finest and most defining live moments,” says Geoff Downes, “from the very first ASIA tour in 1982 and the Alpha tour the following year through three of our many ‘Reunion’ shows.

It was such a privilege to take ASIA’s music to these different continents and feel the warmth and support from fans all over the world. We hope this brings back great memories and inspires others to appreciate the music of ASIA”. 

The sets for ASIA’s original 1980s tours featured only the band’s new music. For the ‘Reunion’ years tours, ASIA included heritage tracks from each of the band member’s pre-ASIA groups.

The 2007 and 2008 concerts also feature the Wetton/Howe composition Ride Easy, a song omitted from the debut album that was issued as the B-side of Heat Of The Moment, and included in their later live repertoire as a thank you to their fans for their support over a quarter of a century.

This the first time these recordings have been made officially available by ASIA and they are presented together in a superb collector’s edition boxset with original artwork by Roger Dean, who created all of ASIA’s album artwork. ASIA, The Official Live Bootlegs, Volume 1 is available as a 10CD boxset and a Digital Album on 26th November 2021 through BMG Records.

About ASIA – ASIA was a true ‘supergroup’ pooling the talents of Geoff Downes, Steve Howe, Carl Palmer and John Wetton, who had already amassed tens of millions of record sales with their collective bands of the 70s.

Leaving behind their progressive roots, ASIA embraced the commercial FM rock sound that dominated US airwaves and took that, and the new MTV video channel, by storm.

The single Heat Of The Moment was a world-wide monster smash and their eponymous 1982 debut album spent an incredible 9 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard chart as ASIA became the biggest selling album of the year and world tour dates sold out.

A second album, Alpha, was released in 1983. The four original members reconvened in 2006 for a world tour, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that incredible success, and the album Phoenix followed.

While the members were still heavily involved in other projects they came together again to record Omega in 2010 and XXX in 2012, both albums were acclaimed by their faithful fans and supported by more world tours.

Steve Howe stepped back from ASIA to concentrate on his work with YES and was absent for 2014’s Gravitas. Following this tour came the news of John Wetton’s treatment for cancer, a fight he sadly lost in 2017.

ASIA THE OFFICIAL LIVE BOOTLEGS – VOLUME 1PRE-ORDER HERE:  https://asiaband.lnk.to/OLB1PR Catalogue no. BMGCAT549BOXBarcode: 4050538709131

Website:  https://originalasia.com/ Facebook – Original AsiaTwitter – @OriginalAsiaInstagram – asiatheband

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• **Buffalo Concert History**

Original Asia Has Plenty Of Daylight Ahead

Retro Concert Review Asia Reunion Tour Seneca Niagara Events Center Niagara Falls, NY Saturday September 2, 2006 Review/Photos: Joseph Suto

Every now and then we will go through the archives of Joseph Suto and post reviews written from days past.Here is one that was significant with the return of the Original Asia. This show was just the band’s 4th since they had last played together in 1983.

The Seneca Niagara Events Center witnessed an event many never thought they’d see again Saturday evening. The return of Asia featuring guitarist Steve Howe, singer/bassist John Wetton, drummer Carl Palmer and keyboardist Geoffrey Downes all playing together on the same stage again. It had been twenty-three years since the “Original” Asia last performed together. The current reunion trek kicked off with a concert Wednesday in Rochester. This show marked the band’s fourth since reforming. Early indications show the band hasn’t missed a beat playing to capacity crowds already.

Asia took the stage with their signature opener “Time Again” and proceeded to play a set of songs which when all was said and done included every track from the first Asia as well as a few select songs off Alpha. To accommodate time the band also played a song from each member’s respective past bands. Yes’ “Roundabout” sounded as fresh as it did back in 1971. Downes got in the act sporting a pair of shades and a flashy jacket for “Video Killed The Radio Star”, a song he recorded as a member of The Buggles. Another highlight featured drummer Palmer on an amazing drum solo during “The Heat Goes On”, a song added into the set after the tour opener.

Other highlights from the evening came in the form in perhaps the finest song the band has written to date “Sole Survivor” and “Ride Easy”, a lost B-side that showed up during the encore. Above all however was “Without You”, an ostentatious, pretentious ballad that this reviewer called the prominent song of the show.

Many of the fans waited so long for the original line-up to perform again. The wait was well worth it as the band showed they can still dish out a top-notch performance. There is talk if the tour goes well, they may put out an album. Let’s hope this is the situation as the band has plenty of gas still left in the tank.

Time Again Wildest Dreams One Step Closer Roundabout (Yes Cover) Without You Cutting It Fine The Clap (Howe Solo) Fanfare for the Common Man (ELP Cover) The Smile Has Left Your Eyes (Acoustic) Don’t Cry (Acoustic) The Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson Cover) Here Comes the Feeling Video Killed the Radio Star (The Buggles Cover) The Heat Goes On (Drum Solo) Only Time Will Tell Sole Survivor

Encore Ride Easy (Acoustic) Heat of the Moment

(Editors Note: This review originally appeared in Night-Life Magazine September 18, 2006)

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Asia: The Reunion Albums 2007-2012 (Review)

Review of Asia: The Reunion Albums 2007-2012, a deluxe 5CD box set featuring the reunion albums from the classic Asia line-up.

by Geoff Bailie

For fans and band alike, it was a case of “unfinished business” when the original Asia line-up reunited in 2006, 25 years after their debut album took the world by storm. The immediate aftermath of their second album, Alpha, was a run of line-up changes that shattered the quartet, albeit Asia as an entity continued in various guises. The harmony of the 2006 reunion and tour was a delight for fans and while new music wasn’t part of the plan, there followed three studio albums before the amicable (this time) departure of Steve Howe, to allow him to balance Yes and solo requirements.

This fantastic box set is a collection of all that went down during that period. Forgetting about the music for one moment, we get a new Roger Dean cover, each of the 4 albums packaged in a mini card sleeve and a booklet of credits and notes.

Fantasia: Live In Tokyo sets the scene, coming from the first wave of touring. Wikipedia tells me there are 35 Asia Live albums available, and I think this one is probably the best. The band kept the setlist simple: the Asia album, a few tracks from Alpha and a track from each member’s legacy band, including versions of Roundabout, Fanfare, Video Killed the Radio Star and, curiously, In The Court of the Crimson King, a song recorded before John Wetton joined the band, but possibly the best of the 4 covers. It all set the scene for a return to the studio…

Having already reunited for 2 Icon albums, the Downes Wetton partnership had shown it had survived with aplomb. The question about a future Asia studio album would be how or whether Steve Howe would fit into such a situation. The Phoenix tracks showed that the years had taken nothing from the power of the writing and playing in the band. The album features two of the Yes-like long prog tracks, and Steve Howe added 2 great songs to the album. From the introductory Never Again, to the closing anthem, An Extraordinary Life, it remains an impressive album.

Omega, studio album number 11 for the band, was a solid follow-up, cast in a similar mold. It includes the reappearance of the Wetton/ Howe songwriting partnership (responsible for One Step Closer, Without You and Here Comes The Feeling on the debut album) on two of the album’s best tracks, Through My Veins and Light The Way. A resprayed Icon track, Finger on the Trigger opens things up, with the rest of the album being a mix of ballads and rockers, all of great quality.

John Wetton’s death in 2017 means that 2012’s XXX is the final studio album from the original four, recorded in the same studio as its two predecessors. The title reflects the 30th anniversary of the debut album, and once again, the Wetton/ Downes team dominate with Steve Howe contributing to No Religion and Judas. The album’s single Face on the Bridge is a good song but perhaps a little too similar in style to some of its more famous siblings, but once again, this is a good Asia album, sitting comfortably in the established pattern of the last two albums. What is slightly disappointing, given the era spanning nature of the box set, is that the version of XXX is missing Reno (Silver and Gold), a strong bonus track on the special edition, along with the two other bonus tracks/ alternate mixes. The same can be said about the other studio albums, with Drop A Stone from XXX similarly absent as are the Phoenix acoustic versions.

That minor criticism aside, this is a great one for both collectors and a great overview for fans who may have missed out on this era. Each of the musicians is in incredible form, and sadly this lineup won’t be seen again, but this set serves to honor the extremely strong second lap of this classic lineup!

Order your copy here: https://asiaband.lnk.to/reunionalbumsFA

CD1 – FANTASIA, LIVE IN TOKYO 2007 (DISC 1)

1. Time Again 2. Wildest Dreams 3. One Step Closer 4. Roundabout 5. Without You 6. Cutting It Fine 7. Intersection Blues 8. Fanfare For The Common Man / 9. The Smile Has Left Your Eyes

CD2 – FANTASIA, LIVE IN TOKYO 2007 (DISC 2)

1. Don’t Cry 2. In The Court Of The Crimson King 3. Here Comes The Feeling 4. Video Killed The Radio Star 5. The Heat Goes On 6. Only Time Will Tell 7. Sole Survivor 8. Ride Easy 9. Heat Of The Moment

CD3 – PHOENIX

1. Never Again 2. Nothing’s Forever 3. Heroine 4. Sleeping Giant / No Way Back / Reprise 5. Alibis 6. I Will Remember You 7. Shadow Of A Doubt 8. Parallel Worlds-Vortex-Déyà 9. Wish I’d Known All Along 10. Orchard Of Mines 11. Over And Over 12. An Extraordinary Life

CD4 – OMEGA

1. Finger On The Trigger 2. Through My Veins 3. Holy War 4. Ever Yours 5. Listen, Children 6. End Of The World 7. Light The Way 8. Emily 9. I’m Still The Same 10. There Was A Time 11. I Believe 12. Don’t Wanna Lose You Now

CD5 – XXX

1. Tomorrow The World 2. Bury Me In Willow 3. No Religion 4. Faithful 5. I Know How You Feel 6. Face On The Bridge 7. Al Gatto Nero 8. Judas 9. Reno (Silver And Gold) 10. Ghost Of A Chance

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Phoebe Bridgers announces Asia leg of Reunion Tour — Singapore, Tokyo, and more

Phoebe Bridgers  is heading to Asia. 

The dream-pop singer-songwriter is making her way to Asia this February as part of her Reunion  tour, which initially kicked off earlier this year in North America. In 2023, the 'Moon Song' act will be performing in Singapore and Japan, following her tour around Australia and New Zealand. 

          View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by AEG Presents Asia (@aegpresentsasia)

Phoebe Bridgers is set to take over the Esplanade Theatre on 14 and 15 February.

BANDWAGON TV

Tickets for Phoebe's Singapore second show will go on sale on 19 December, 12 PM SGT via  Ticketmaster SG.   Tickets are priced at  SGD 89, SGD 109, and  SGD 129.

Phoebe will be playing an acoustic show in Kyoto at Kyoto Muse on 18 February 2023. Tickets start at JPY 7,650. Get tickets here.

In Osaka, Phoebe is set to perform at Namba-Hatch on 20 February 2023. Tickets are priced at JPY 9,5150 (1F) and JPY 9.950 (2F). Tickets on sale here.

Phoebe wraps up her Japan tour in Tokyo's Zepp DiverCity on 21 February 2023.  Tickets priced at JPY 9,5150 (1F) and JPY 9.950 (2F) are on sale here.

This will be the first time Phoebe will be performing a headlining tour around Asia. The award-winning singer-songwriter released her GRAMMY-nominated debut album, Punisher  which included an array of acclaimed tracks like  'Kyoto', 'Garden Song',  and  'Saviour Complex' . 

Check out her Australia and Asia tour dates below. 

• 30 January 2023: Laneway Festival, Auckland
• 4 February 2023: Laneway Festival, Brisbane
• 5 February 2023: Laneway Festival, Sydney
• 6 February 2023: Hordern Pavillion, Sydney
• 8 February 2023: Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
• 10 February 2023: Laneway Festival, Adelaide
• 11 February 2023: Laneway Festival, Melbourne
• 12 February 2023: Laneway Festival, Fremantle
• 15 February 2023: Esplanade Theatre, Singapore
• 18 February 2023: Kyoto Muse, Kyoto
• 20 February 2023: Namba Hatch, Osaka
• 21 February 2023: Zepp DiverCity, Tokyo

Listen to Phoebe Bridgers' 'Kyoto' here. 

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Asia / The Reunion Albums 2007-2012

Five-cd box of live and studio albums.

By Paul Sinclair

BMG will issue The Reunion Albums next month, a five-CD box set featuring material from the 2006 reformed classic line-up of Asia , which featured lead vocalist / bassist John Wetton of King Crimson , guitarist Steve Howe of Yes , keyboardist Geoff Downes of Yes , and drummer Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer .

The clamshell box set features Fantasia : Live in Tokyo , a live show from their 2007 World Tour (a two-CD set), and the three subsequent studio albums: Phoenix (2008), Omega (2010) and XXX (2012).

The box features the distinctive design work of Roger Dean, who created all the original albums covers ( Fantasia is actually slightly updated).

Asia originally formed in 1981 and are best known for the single ‘Heat of the Moment’ which was taken from their eponymous debut album  Asia (1982). The original line-up only last for three years (or two albums) and hence it was a big deal when they reformed in 2006.

The Reunion Albums 2007-2012 will be released on 11 June 2021.

Compare prices and pre-order

The Reunion Albums 2007-2012

Tracklisting, the reunion albums 2007-2012 asia / 5cd box set.

• Wildest Dreams
• One Step Closer
• Without You
• Cutting It Fine
• Intersection Blues
• Fanfare For The Common Man /
• The Smile Has Left Your Eyes
• Don’t Cry
• In The Court Of The Crimson King
• Here Comes The Feeling
• Video Killed The Radio Star
• The Heat Goes On
• Only Time Will Tell
• Sole Survivor
• Heat Of The Moment
• Never Again
• Nothing’s Forever
• Sleeping Giant / No Way Back / Reprise
• I Will Remember You
• Shadow Of A Doubt
• Parallel Worlds-Vortex-Déyà
• Wish I’d Known All Along
• Orchard Of Mines
• Over And Over
• An Extraordinary Life
• Finger On The Trigger
• Through My Veins
• Listen, Children
• End Of The World
• Light The Way
• I’m Still The Same
• There Was A Time
• Don’t Wanna Lose You Now
• Tomorrow The World
• Bury Me In Willow
• No Religion
• I Know How You Feel
• Face On The Bridge
• Al Gatto Nero
• Reno (Silver And Gold)
• Ghost Of A Chance

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• September 24, 2006 Setlist

Asia Setlist at McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, CA, USA

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Asia Gig Timeline

• Sep 22 2006 Fort McDowell Casino Fountain Hills, AZ, USA Add time Add time
• Sep 23 2006 The Canyon Agoura Hills, CA, USA Add time Add time
• Sep 24 2006 McCallum Theatre This Setlist Palm Desert, CA, USA Add time Add time
• Nov 28 2006 Carling Academy Liverpool Liverpool, England Add time Add time
• Nov 29 2006 Carling Academy Newcastle upon Tyne, England Add time Add time

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Arts & Culture | 8.9.2017

An Asian Tour Reunion

Fifty years after they sang their way around the globe as undergraduates, they returned to cambridge with full hearts and voices. .

Members of the Asian Tour sing on the steps of Dubrovnik Cathedral in August 1967. Photograph by Hal Gibbons

In 2015, the singers returned to Rocky Mountain National Park, where they had rehearsed before setting off on the tour, and recreated their 1967 group photo. Courtesy of Kathy Reardon '67

The singers receive a joyful welcome in Tokyo. Photograph by Claire Max '68

Often the Asian Tour chorus performed with groups from the countries they visited, here with a Japanese children's choir.  Courtesy of Kathy Reardon '67

Before their summer-long trip in 1967, the 88 singers rehearsed for a week in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Sitting front and center in this photo, wearing a plaid shirt, is Elliot Forbes, the ledendary director of the Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society. He took part in reunions of the Asian Tour until his death in 2006. Photograph by Peter Lovely '67

Fifty years ago this week, they were just touching down in Bombay, having made their way through the southern islands of the Philippines after a flight from Hong Kong a couple of weeks earlier: 88 undergraduate singers, some as young as 17 and none older than 22, all of them halfway around the world from home for the longest time they’d ever been away. They were members of the Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society, on a summer concert expedition mostly in Asia. The Asian Tour, it was called, those words printed in block letters across the crimson-bound itinerary books they all carried.

But the name would become shorthand for so much more than that. For something that the singers, even now, can’t fully articulate, and yet it’s kept them coming back to each other again and again, for decades. Every five years, the group reconvenes in Cambridge to sing together and resurface old memories and mark the years and lives that have unspooled around them—and to remember those they have lost. There are long, talky lunches and impromptu sing-alongs and two-hour rehearsals that bring them crisply to their feet in the old familiar semicircular rows, their black folders of sheet music opening and closing together, their voices rising and falling.

This year’s reunion, their fiftieth, had been on their minds for a while.

Mansions to dirt floors

As much as it is anyone’s, the Asian Tour belongs to Ned Goodhue. As a freshman member of the Glee Club in the fall of 1963, he watched the upperclassmen prepare for a two-week tour of Canada and decided to organize his own concert trip, one that would last a whole summer. He brought the idea to Elliot Forbes, the legendary longtime conductor of the Glee Club and the Choral Society, who instructed that Goodhue’s tour must include Radcliffe and then said, “Keep me posted.” That was all the go-ahead Goodhue needed.

Casting about for destinations after concluding that a tour of the Soviet Union, his original idea, might be “a bridge too far,” Goodhue happened across the name of a particularly enthusiastic—and prominent—alumnus in Manila. Benito Legarda Jr., Ph.D. ’55, was an economist and historian, a rising executive at the Central Bank of the Philippines—and president of the local Harvard club. Goodhue got in touch. Immediately, Legarda was on board. A great idea, he declared. How could he help?

From that kernel, the itinerary began to build, country by country: Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Israel, plus a few final days in Yugoslavia and Scotland. Goodhue ’68, M.B.A ’70, D.B.A. ’84, took a year off school in order to work on the tour plans full time, organizing the schedule, scouting travel routes and concert halls, flying overseas for meetings in American embassies and foreign governmental offices, reaching out to ask for help from Harvard alumni in each country. Forbes, meanwhile, set a vast, and challenging, musical repertoire: Josquin, Strauss, Brahms, Stravinsky, Haydn, Britten, Bach, Mozart, Bartok, Purcell, Lassus, plus Fair Harvard (of course) and folk songs from each country they would visit. The singers would perform 90 concerts in all.

A couple of weeks after spring semester ended in 1967, the group set off. Besides the 88 Glee Club and Choral Society singers who’d auditioned for the trip, there were Forbes and his wife, Kathleen, who sang alto, and three accompanists, including one who doubled as the tour physician and also sang first bass (Bernie Kreger, M.D. ’59, who still serves as the group’s accompanist at reunions). After a week of rehearsals in a secluded lodge in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park and two quick stopovers in Los Angeles and Honolulu, they boarded a flight bound for Tokyo.

Laura Shapiro ’68 remembers looking out the airplane window and seeing rice paddies. That’s when it hit her just how far from home they all were. When you ask members of the Asian Tour today about their memories of the trip, these are the kinds of stories they tell. Throughout the tour, the students stayed not in hotels, but in local people’s homes—a purposeful, and, it turned out, profound decision that Goodhue made to deepen their cultural immersion (it also saved enough money to make the trip financially doable). Sometimes home stays meant a mansion, other times a dirt floor. In India, Kay Tolbert ’69 was put up on an estate with enormous gardens patrolled by peacocks; on one of the southern Philippine islands, she slept in a tiny house, sharing a bed with a Radcliffe classmate, “knowing that we’d uprooted whoever usually slept there.” In Ahmedabad, India, Ted Todd ’67 and Mike Epley ’67 stayed with the son of a Hindu sect leader whose followers revered him as the embodiment of a deity. They recall a trip to the temple with the son, a sweet, shy young man not much older than they were. With his father away, he was the one the monks and priests venerated, bowing down and reaching out to touch him—Todd and Epley recall the son’s seeming abashment as he excused himself to go to another part of the temple for a few moments to be worshipped.

Meanwhile, in Japan, tour president Steve Griffith ’67 bumbled through a hilariously calamitous bath that ended with his trying to dress himself in a kimono belt that he mistook for a full garment; the host father, with a look of horror, pointed out the kimono he hadn’t seen, immaculately pressed and folded nearby. (Griffith’s full account, and other stories from the 1967 tour, were recorded on video during the group’s 2012 reunion—the bath saga begins at 4:41 minutes in. Parts two and three of the recording are here and here .)

Shapiro remembers coming downstairs before 6 a.m. in Kyoto to find that her hostess, not knowing what Americans would eat, had prepared every kind of food she knew how to make. “She’d been up since Lord knows when, cooking.” Amid the feast of tempura, sushi, heaps of rice, and fresh-squeezed peach juice (“something I’ve never seen before or since”), she also served toast—just in case.

A few days earlier, in Tokyo, Shapiro and fellow singer Marilyn Wilt ’67 had been whisked away in a car by Japanese hosts who wanted to “show us something”—she and Wilt didn’t know what. After riding for what seemed like hours, they reached a hillside and stepped out of the car, following their hosts through a stand of trees that opened onto a tiny, exquisite building. Inside were arranged the objects for a Japanese tea ceremony. It was one of the most stunning things Shapiro had ever seen—the memory still amazes her. Gently, carefully, the hosts guided her and Wilt through the ceremony. “It was the most beautiful gift, and they wanted us to receive it, to see this about their country. It’s like, you’re just this tired, stupid American, and you get lifted up into a different world and set down in the most beautiful experience of Japan that anyone could ever have.… I wouldn’t have known how to ask for it. I wouldn’t have known it was there. They just handed it to us.”

All this hospitality just two decades after World War II ended. That fact struck Shapiro only years later, reflecting on the ardent farewell she’d received from a Japanese mother and daughter at the Tokyo train station as the singers were departing. Come back soon, they had told her in their limited English. “And 22 years earlier we had been bitterest enemies, feeding on caricatures of each other,” Shapiro says. “They were welcoming with their whole hearts this bunch of Americans. And we were never made to feel anything except warmly, graciously, lovingly welcomed. And of course we poured it all back a thousand-fold,” in the concerts they sang and the company they gave.

Israel was another climax. By that time, the singers had been traveling for two months and untold miles. They’d lost an engine over India and had to turn back briefly for another airplane. In Hong Kong, they’d arrived amid deadly riots against British colonial rule; the situation was so volatile they abandoned their home stays for the security of a hotel. Nearly every student had fallen sick at least once from food poisoning or exotic germs. But they kept singing, and they loved it, performing at sprawling auditoriums and city halls and village theaters and outdoor festivals, plus the occasional street corner. 

The group landed in Jerusalem in mid August—eight weeks after the Six-Day War. “The place was almost still smoldering,” says Griffith. “There were ashes everywhere.” And euphoria. One of the first performing groups to come to Israel after the war, they sang at the Western Wall, which had just been captured by the Israelis. The repertoire included a folk song written as soon as the fighting ended; the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv had forwarded the music while the singers were still in India. Forbes composed a choral harmony on the fly. When they sang in Jerusalem, the audience was in tears. Soldiers stationed backstage were crying, too. “It was incredible,” says Goodhue. “The Jews in our group got to pray at the Wall.”

A vanishing moment in time

In retrospect , says Goodhue, it’s remarkable that the tour happened at all. Though the Glee Club and the Choral Society had been touring internationally since the 1920s, they had never undertaken such a long trip—the students were gone for half of June and all of July and August. And the plans were extraordinarily intricate: travel, lodging, food, concert venues, visas, vaccines, multiple border crossings.  The Boeing 707—the first commercially successful passenger jetliner, whose popularity ushered in the Jet Age—had been introduced only eight years earlier. Air travel was still relatively new—and expensive. “A round-trip economy airfare from Sydney to London was the equivalent to the total cost of a small house,” Goodhue says. “Almost even just the idea of being able to do this except for the very, very rich, was ridiculous. Ridiculous!” The Asian Tour’s entire budget was $126,000: local Harvard Clubs helped pay for in-country expenses, and singers’ families contributed about half of the total budget, chipping in however much they could. The other half came from donations, mainly from Glee Club and Choral Society alumni. (As part of this year’s fiftieth reunion, the singers raised $126,000 and presented it to the Harvard Choruses, to help fund future tours.)

More than that, though, says Goodhue, the Asian Tour occupied a vanishing moment in time. A decade later, the same trip would not have been possible. Places like Japan, Hong Kong, and India were not yet so modernized as they are today and were still relatively unknown to many in the West. By the late 1960s, the postwar American economy had been growing for 20 years straight. The Vietnam War and the draft loomed, and civil-rights struggles and antiwar protests roiled American public life, but despite all that, undergraduates from Harvard and Radcliffe—some naïve about politics, others very much aware—still looked forward to robust futures, Goodhue says, and “consequently, almost every student, regardless of their background, was curious about the world.” They could afford to be. And much of the world reciprocated.

When the students departed Cambridge on June 16, they knew they would be gone for two and a half months, and not just gone, but unreachable. “If you wanted to make an international phone call,” Goodhue says, “you had to book it several days in advance…Literally, in the world of the mid 1960s, you would come back from a summer trip to find out that your dog had died or your grandmother was sick or your brother was married.” During the trip, that isolation turned the singers both inward, toward each other and their music, and outward, toward the unknown, unimagined world they were traveling through.  

“Everyone is accounted for”

The reunions started almost right away. The first one was in 1972. The singers, some barely graduated, came back together on campus to reprise their tour performances with a concert. Then about five years later, they came back again. And five years after that. “We didn’t choose ourselves as social friends in 1967,” says Griffith. “We were chosen to be singers.” But on the road in Japan and India and the Philippines (where they were chaperoned on a coast-guard vessel to avoid guerillas in the southern islands), a bond took hold. Friendship might not even be the right word: “It would be putting on airs to say we are all bosom buddies,” Griffith says, though the tour yielded many close relationships and at least three marriages. The singers had seen the world together. The experience had changed their lives. They shared memories that only fellow tour members could really understand. They shared music—after 90 performances and who knows how many rehearsals, they knew each other’s voices inside and out. Who would want to give that up? “We have a tie,” Griffith says, “and it’s not just the past.” Laura Shapiro puts it another way. “All those things just got planted in your soul. And so you go back to that every five years and water it again.” Each reunion, the singers reclaim a little bit of their younger selves’ wide-eyed amazement, “but I think mostly you get to feel how that time fed you. And it did, in ways you could never define or articulate. In a million different ways.”

After Forbes died in 2006, Dan Hathaway ’67 and Carlotta Wilsen Woolpert, M.A.T. ’68, assistant conductors on the Asian Tour—both of whom went on to musical careers—stepped into his role, choosing and leading the songs for each reunion, keeping in mind the changing range and timbre of the singers’ aging voices. “We’re like Toscanini’s orchestra that kept playing after he died,” Griffith says. He notes how faithfully each reunion is attended, even after all these years. This past spring, 68 singers showed up. Fourteen from the original group have died; of the others who were missing, Griffith says, “I can give the exact reason why they can’t come. Everyone is accounted for.”

Across the decades, the chorus has gained a few new voices: a musical spouse or two, or Glee Club or Choral Society members who couldn’t make the Asian Tour. One of those adopted into the circle is Linda Perry, an opera singer whose husband, Lew Perry ’69, was the first person the group lost. He died in 1977, at 29 years old. An embolism. “He sang first tenor,” his wife says, “this beautiful, silver sound. It was that kind of voice—you never forgot it.” Lew had talked a lot about the Asian Tour—Linda knows all the stories by heart—and some years after his death, she received a letter inviting her to a reunion. She wrote back to say she was coming, and that she didn’t want to just sit and listen. A low alto, she could sing her husband’s part, replacing the voice the choir was missing. “Send me the music,” she said.    

Fifty years in the making

The group had been planning this year’s reunion since the get-together they held in 2015 out in Estes Park, Colorado, where they’d trained in isolation before setting off on their big adventure in 1967. “We decided, gee, who knows, we might not make it to 50,” Bill Reardon ’68 says, “so we did a forty-eighth reunion.” But they did make it to 50, and on a Wednesday afternoon in late April, everybody arrived in Cambridge and checked into the Sheraton Commander Hotel.

The schedule for the following five days was packed—receptions and rehearsals and catered lunches and early breakfasts and more rehearsals, two a day, and a couple of hours here and there of free time. The highlight of it all, at least on paper, was the second of three slated performances, a Saturday night concert in Sanders Theatre, in black suits and dresses, singing with the Harvard Choruses and a full orchestra. “Everybody thinks we’re gone and put out to pasture,” Griffith says, “but here we are performing with the Glee Club and the Choral Society and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. A bunch of old fuddy-duds.”

But a different concert, the one they sing every time, remains the deep heart of each reunion: a Saturday morning ceremony in Memorial Church to remember the people they’ve lost. Each time, there are eulogies for those who have died since the last reunion, and this year Laura Shapiro got up and spoke about Marilyn Wilt, who’d been with her 50 years ago for that stunning tea ceremony on a woody hillside in Japan.

“You see us just being with ourselves,” Griffith says. “ Sub specie mortis . Looking at the aspect of death. Everybody knows it. That is powerful.” In the sanctuary, three listeners sat in the first pew, perfectly still; otherwise the church was empty, except for ringing voices and the echoing organ. The choir sang Mendelssohn and Brahms and a Moses Hogan spiritual. For long minutes, the looping harmonies of Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria soared from the choir stalls, an almost impossibly gorgeous, haunted sound. Afterward, in jackets and raincoats, the singers—some as young as 67, none of them older than 72—gathered quietly on the steps of the church for a group photo. “Ready?” said the woman behind the camera. “OK, smile.”

And then a few hours later, they were in Sanders Theatre, that “beautiful little rosewood box,” Griffith calls it, for what felt like their biggest recital since maybe the Asian Tour itself. The day before, Harvard Choruses director Andrew Clark had dropped by a rehearsal in the small auditorium of First Church on Garden Street—the singers’ reunion headquarters—to walk through the music with them. They were singing A Child of Our Time, an oratorio by twentieth-century English composer and dedicated pacifist Michael Tippett. Written between 1939 and 1941, the piece was inspired by Kristallnacht. It’s a difficult, chilling chronicle of oppression and inhumanity, with some almost unsingably brutal lyrics (“Curse them! Kill them!…They infect the state”) and unmistakable resonances, Clark said, for today’s world (“Pogroms in the east, lynching in the west”). “The main theme,” he explained to the group, “is: how did we get here? What can we say about oppression? How do we process scapegoating? Where does culpability lie, and what is the way forward? What is the state of the world?”

Full of what Clark called “found objects”—a tango, bits of Jungian psychology, Bach Passions, Handel’s Messiah —Tippett’s oratorio winds itself around four African-American spirituals that intersperse the narrative and “become a sort of Lutheran chorale,” Clark said, “the moment when we reflect on the trauma that’s just taken place and what is about to follow.” But instead of using four-part Lutheran hymns, Tippett “pulled from a tradition that had experienced its own trauma and oppression and scapegoating”: African-American spirituals. The composer had heard a radio broadcast of them and later said that a trumpet had sounded in his soul. He wrote to the publisher of James Weldon Johnson’s 1922 collection The Books of American Negro Spirituals to ask for a copy. And he started writing A Child of Our Time .

Those spirituals were what the Asian Tour group would sing. Sitting in the audience, close to the stage, they formed a fourth chorus—a kind of Greek chorus, Griffith observed, and when they rose from their seats and began to sing, adding their voices to the voices on stage, the little rosewood box shook. “Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus.” It was hard not to cry. The sound was almost wild somehow, almost incandescent. An hour later, after the bass soloist had sung of “no final grieving, but an abiding hope,” and of moving waters that renew the earth, the Asian Tour group rose for the final time, to deliver the spiritual that closed the oratorio. “Deep river, my home is over Jordan,” they sang, slowly, then slower. “Lord, I want to cross over into campground.”

Then the voices and instruments vanished into silence, and for a full 12 seconds, people in the audience sat stunned and mute before they remembered to clap. As the applause finally rained down, Griffith welled up with tears. “Did you hear that?” he said a few moments later, as the lights came up and the audience began to disperse. His voice was almost a whisper. “Did you hear that?” Linda Perry reached up and gave him a hug. The Asian Tour singers would perform again the next morning at a campus church service with the University Choir, but this night was a punctuation mark. “Even if this were the last time we ever got to sing,” Griffith said, “I would still be happy.” He paused for a beat, thought about that again. Finally he added, “But we will sing again.”

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Sabrina Carpenter Announces New Single ‘Espresso' Ahead of Coachella 2024: Here's When It Arrives

Sabrina Carpenter is giving fans a bit of an energy boost. Just days ahead of her upcoming set at Coachella 2024, the rising pop star announced that her next single "Espresso" is on track to arrive later this week, sharing its release date and cover on social media Monday (April 8).

The song's retro-looking artwork finds Carpenter posing in front of a baby-blue backdrop with one arm draped behind her head, her long, blond waves cascading down her other shoulder. The song's title aptly appears in dark brown lettering in the left corner.

"just wanted to put out a little song before Coachella," she captioned the portrait on Instagram along with a brown heart. "Espresso 4/11 8pm EST."

The Girl Meets World alum is one of several artists slated to perform at both weekends of this year's festival, which will be headlined by Lana Del Rey, Doja Cat and Tyler, the Creator as well as feature a reunion concert from No Doubt. Also on the lineup are Peso Pluma, Lil Uzi Vert, J Balvin, Blur, Ice Spice and more, with performances kicking off Friday (April 12).

Carpenter last released music in November 2023, dropping a six-track holiday EP titled Fruitcake . Before that came the deluxe edition of her 2022 album Emails I Can't Send , which recently led the singer to her first top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Feather" peaking at No. 26 last month.

The Work It star is also fresh off her stint as an opener on Taylor Swift's global Eras Tour, which she joined for the trek's legs in Latin America, Asia and Australia. "It almost feels like a Broadway show because everything is so synchronized, but at the same time feels so in the moment," she said of the show in a recent interview . "I feel so lucky that I get to watch Taylor perform every time. It makes me want to tour the world again, which is a good feeling."

See Carpenter's announcement below.

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