Asia was formed in 1981 bringing together the talents of Geoff Downes, Steve Howe, Carl Palmer and John Wettton. The band was dubbed the first supergroup of the eighties as all the members had an enviable track record and had been successful in a number of bands. Both Downes and Howe had been in the most recent version of Yes, Carl Palmer had of course been one third of the incredibly successful ELP and John Wetton had been a member of a number of high profile bands including Family, Uriah Heep and more importantly King Crimson.

Asia was incredibly successful from the day their debut album was released in March 1982. The album spawned a number of hit singles including Heat Of The Moment, Only Time Will Tell and Sole Survivor. The band was a huge success worldwide and the album Asia would go onto sell an amazing 7 million copies worldwide.

Following the release of the debut album Asia headed out on tour. The tour was a huge success and the band spent six months touring the world to enthusiastic audiences culminating in two sold out shows on their home territory at Wembley arena London in October 1982.

In the early months of 1983 the band reconvened to work on the follow up album that was to be entitled Alpha. Cracks however were beginning to show and the album whilst selling more than respectably did not emulate the massive sales success of the first album. The tour to promote the Alpha album was dubbed the Asian Invasion and was split into two parts. The first part of the tour took in recognised hot areas for Asia and the second leg would swing round and take in newer markets or those that had built up on the strength of the album sales. Unfortunately the second leg was cancelled and the original line up would play it's final gig together in Detroit in September following which John Wetton would briefly leave the band to be replaced by Greg Lake. Just over two weeks prior to this final date the band played at the Centrum in Worcester Massachusetts. This fly on the wall recording is the latest in the Asia Archives series and captures the original line up of Asia near the end of what would be their final tour together. The material contains many of the classic tracks from the bands debut and also material from the then recently released follow up album Alpha.