I introduced you to 'The Official Live Bootlegs Vol.1' of the Brits from 'ASIA' more than 2 years ago and now the 6 concerts are available on the Spotify and Qobuz streaming platforms for more than 10 hours of listening (the links of this review are a playlist of these 6 concerts). Of course, these are only bootlegs and we should not stop at the quality of the sound which is far from what we expect from a legendary group like 'ASIA' (in this case, fall back on the official live recorded in Tokyo in 2007 on spotify here and on qobuz here) but we must take this concert series as a testimony to the two eras during which 'ASIA' was composed of the emblematic quartet of the beginning with CVs as long as your arm: none other than, we find 'John Wetton' ('King Crimson', 'Uriah Heep' and 'Roxy Music' among others), 'Geoff Downes' ('Yes ', 'The Bugles' and 'Greg Lake/Geoff Downes' among others), 'Steve Howe' (mainly 'Yes' but having participated in many other projects) and 'Carl Palmer' (mainly 'Emerson, Lake and Palmer' ). In front of all these prestigious names parading, this super group managed to release the first three albums of ASIA' which have become cult, 'Asia', 'Alpha' and 'Astra' ('Carl Palmer' having also recorded 'Aqua' which was released in 1992) as well as the two albums from the 2000s with 'Phoenix' and 'Omega'.
In short, these 6 albums will certainly make all fans of this legendary group happy and, even if they are not technically free from all criticism, for all those who knew the beginnings of this formation, this collection of bootlegs shows all the talent of this group in concert and reminds us what a live performance was like in the early 80s when the computer had not yet become the conductor of a concert which certainly gave off an atmosphere more authentic than those of today... | |
