Geoff Downes, who brings Asia to Hard Rock Event Center in Tampa, Florida on July 22, 2024. Credit: Steve Knight from Halstead, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0

This isn’t your dad’s Asia.

Original frontman John Wetton died in 2017, Carl Palmer is busy on the road presenting “The Return of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer,” and Steve Howe (who technically retired from Asia last decade) is too busy prepping for Yes’ co-headlining tour with Deep Purple. That leaves keyboardist Geoff Downes (who also plays in Yes) conducting a brand-new lineup of musicians.

Along with Dutch prog rock outfits Focus and Curved Air, Wishbone Ash’s Martin Turner, and album cover painter-slash-emcee Roger Dean, Downes will be joined onstage by Irish guitarist John Mitchell, former Planet X drummer Virgil Donati, and wunderkind bassist Harry Whitley, who seemingly already has the approval of his new peers in the genre.

Tickets to see Asia play Hard Rock Event Center at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa on Monday, July 22 are still available and start at $80.
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