Welcome back, my friends, to the song that never ends: Geoff Downes of Asia.
By TOM CHESEK
As part of a loose nationwide “underground railroad” of mid-sized auditoriums, theme-park arenas and summer-stage fairgrounds, the Count Basie Theatre continues to play a vital role in connecting the music of “a certain era” to audiences of “a certain age.”
It’s not nostalgia, it’s now-stalgia — and it carries the value-added attraction of showing us that the now be-wattled warriors of album-rock radio can still lead active and productive lives, even getting $100 a ticket — provided they observe that earlybird 8p curtain time.
It’s a successful policy that continues this Wednesday night with a Red Bank reprise by those synth-shiny hitmakers of the early ’80s, Asia — or, more to the point, All Four Original Members of Asia.
Born full-grown in 1982, the slick supergroup of British veterans arrived at just the right time, catching the first wave of fascination with MTV and jumping into the video game at a time when most FM favorites were on the fence about that newfangled method of promoting product. In fact, it was the group’s keyboard player Geoff Downes — as a member of new-wave duo the Buggles — who was the first artist heard on the first video ever aired by MTV, “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
For their troubles, the band netted itself a multi-platinum debut LP and a couple of blandly pleasing hit singles (“Heat of the Moment,” “Only Time Will Tell”) that made instant fans of kids who cared not that most of the lineup all traced their recording careers back to the late 1960s.
Look carefully behind the Roger Dean album cover, however, and you’d find three veterans of the mad laboratory that was early-’70s progressive (or ‘prog’) rock. Steve Howe (of stadium-filling symph-rockers Yes), Carl Palmer (precision percussionist and partner to Emerson and Lake) and John Wetton (who fronted what was arguably the most powerhouse permutation of the venerable King Crimson) had long laid down a soundtrack to the lives of the typical Asia fan’s older siblings, who felt a bit betrayed by the former purveyors of polyphonic pomposities.
Supergroups being what they are — namely, super-egos unencumbered by lean-years allegiances — Asia would soon dissolve and recombine intermittently as a trade-name marriage of convenience. The various personnel would reunite with old prog bands, meander into forgotten solo projects or mix and match with dozens of other players in the convoluted family tree of British art rock.
It wasn’t until a full-fledged reunion in 2006 — and a visit to the Basie stage in 2007 — that local audiences got clued in to the way in which Asia had reconciled the seemingly random threads of its members’ careers.
As the Basie website tells it, “by the third song of Asia’s show at the Basie last year, when they unexpectedly played ‘Roundabout’, we knew we were in for something special.” That FM perennial by Yes was one of a handful of surprises in a set that also saw nods to the legacies of Crimson (“In the Court of the Crimson King”), ELP (Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”) and even the Buggles (“Video Killed the Radio Star”). “Prog Spring” had come to Red Bank.
Expect a similar tip of the hat to the storied past when the original Asia returns to Monmouth Street, along with those buffed-to-a-finish eighties hits and some well-placed plugs for Phoenix, the lineup’s first new release in twenty-five years. Tix ($25-$100) can be reserved by visiting the theatre’s online box office here.
Another FM staple from the years leading up to and including the golden age of MTV, Pat Benatar returns to the Basie on Friday with her husband, guitarist-producer Neil Giraldo, co-billed for an evening of hits from her impressive run on the charts. It’s a portfolio that’s packed with memories, ranging from cornball female cock-rock (“Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” “I Need a Lover”) to madball video epics (“Love is a Battlefield,” “Sex as a Weapon,” “Anxiety”) to some relatively oddball detours (“La Belle Age,” “The Ooh Ooh Song”).
Never anything less than a consummate professional, the serial Grammy winner and her long-play partner have crafted a sort of Captain and Tennille act for the young century; one that pulls together all those disparate sounds with panache and makes perfect sense in venues like Vegas, AC and the Andy Williams Moon River Theatre in Branson, MO.
That ole rocking chair creaks again on Friday, May 15, when the Count Basie hosts the 2008-edition lineup of Foreigner, the major-label slicksters (whose original roster included another Crimson alumnus) that brought us “Feels Like the First Time,” “Double Vision” and “I Want to Know What Love Is.” It’s a show with a $150 VIP meet-and-greet option with the band (no longer featuring lead singer Lou Gramm), and it’s sponsored by, no surprise here, the AARP.
