Asia along with Journey is coming next to Yakima and performing at The Yakima Valley Sun Dome.

I can hardly wait and I already have my tickets to the show.

I was 12 when I first heard Asia but I didn't buy my first album until I was 16 and my first selection was based on Asia...allow me to explain.

I know I've talked about being a poor kid growing up so money was hard to come by. I was 15 when I bought my first album at the local Pay Less store. I wanted to buy Mr. Mister's "Welcome To The Real World" but choose another album and Asia played a big part in my decision.

Asia was a considered a musical SUPER GROUP with a mixture of musicians from Yes, Genesis, Emerson Lake and Palmer and King Crimson. It was their massive hit 'Heat Of The Moment" that put them into everyone's cassette players at the time.

Asia, like all super groups of the era disbanded and that left members jumping into new projects that included various splinter groups and that's how Asia influenced my very first album purchase.

I bought the debut album of "GTR" which turned out to be the band's only official album release before breaking up. GTR featured guitarist Steve Howe who had been in Asia and Geoff Downes who played keyboards in Asia was the producer of the project.

Ironically, both bands had similar sounding smash singles due to the overlapping of musicians playing in both bands but at 15 I didn't put the threads together.

I spent $6.99 for my vinyl copy and I think I still have it in my storage shed because I can't seem to part with it.

I think I'm going to really like seeing Asia next week because I'll immediately flash back to me playing those Asia albums over and over because I had so little money to buy more albums.

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