Asia and Hayseed Dixie – A Wild Combo Served Up at a Bikers’ Bash (2013)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Faak Am See / Harley Davidson Bikers Week / Austria
Concert date: 06.09.2013
Attendance: 1000
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry)

This year’s edition of the bikers’ week on the Faaker See, by the little village of Faak Am See near Villach, kicked off the first of its two main concert days with the legendary British AOR champions Asia. A super rock band whose debut »Asia« (1982) has sold over ten million copies to this day needs no special introduction! The current lineup, besides three legends, “badges of pioneership” in rock music who are practically irreplaceable and bring such strong personal musical charisma to the band, is rounded out by young Sam Couslon, who stepped »into the game« this January to fill the gigantic shoes of the one-of-a-kind Steve Howe, who officially left Asia because he’s too busy with Yes and his solo career. Whole bibles have been written in the story of rock history about the great sages we just introduced, John Wetton (vocals, bass), Geoff Downes (keyboards, backing vocals) and Carl Palmer (drums), so catching a band like Asia in 2013 counts as a concert attraction in its own right, if not an outright treat! If nothing else, it’s certainly mandatory concert reading for every true believer of rock.

Last year Asia released the album »XXX«. The aptly titled record marks the close of the band’s third decade, and even with this new release they keep the quality bar high, as cemented by their studio albums from the eighties.

The show at this year’s Harley Davidson bikers’ days at Faak Am See was, of course, a special kind of gig. It wasn’t the sort a band puts together when it’s the headliner of its own tour. Asia took the stage with a time limit of an hour and fifteen minutes, so there was no talk of a full set with 17 to 20 songs. Still, the trip from Slovenia was impossible to resist. Free entry, a legendary band, and even more. After them the party wasn’t over, because next came the gloriously nutty Hill Billy crazies Hayseed Dixie, a band that in the manner of parody does covers of acts like AC/DC, Motörhead, Alice Cooper, Queen, Judas Priest. In a country rendition, of course, dictated by the indispensable echo of the “highly civilized society” of North American ranchers: banjo and mandolin.

Asia hit the stage a little before ten and left it a little after eleven. Enough to feel the charisma and form of the biblical patriarchs of AOR! It was fascinating to watch the communication between the young “apprentice” Coulson and the three Gandalf-like wizards. Couslon coped admirably with the colossal size of Howe’s shoes! He simplified things only to the extent of playing every song on one single guitar (Howe would surely have swapped 10 to 15 of them in a set like this). The kid is drilled well enough that he could play in his sleep whatever his comrades in Asia order him to, but he still lacks the soft, supple, adaptable grip of Steve Howe. That sonic flaw in the interpretation showed up especially in the calmer transitional passages that demanded a “steady hand,” where some of Coulson’s tones sounded a touch cramped. But the kid is armed with a deft, fast hand carrying a solid dose of control, which rarely lets him down as he sails through Steve Howe’s legacy. Hats off to the young guitarist, who promises a great deal! In a less important aside of this write-up, Coulson looked uncannily like guitarist Paul Bielatowicz, a member of the Carl Palmer Trio. Surely both went through the schooling of tutors Dave Kilminster and Guthrie Govan (the latter was a member of Asia between 2000 and 2005). Coulson won people over especially in the second half and at the very end of the show, and he kept building up his playing throughout the gig.

John Wetton’s vocals worked at an enviable level, and the old man is holding up. His famous vocal color came alive in full splendor, and above all the guy squeezed out more than just a feeling of routine in Days Like These (»Now And Then«, 1990), where he tried especially hard to fire up the proverbially cool Austrian crowd, who only mildly bobbed their heads during the show. Wetton radiated total ease. Asia were feeling good. A touch too laid-back? Yep. Wetton has simply played too much for anything to throw him off. Still, a silly blunder happened right at the end of the show, when in their biggest hit, Heat Of The Moment, the man dropped into the first verse with a guitar tuned almost a half-step too low. No, Wetton wasn’t hitting wrong notes. The guitar and the bass simply weren’t tuned properly. John heard it, of course. It bothered him. So in those moments he couldn’t hold the vocal with 100% confidence. He glanced over his shoulder toward backstage. No tech there. Then, like a pro, he turned the tuning peg on his bass and came into the chorus in the right key! Still, at the start of the third verse, where for years the band has “overlaid” the basic rhythm with rock ‘n’ roll cues every single time, he forgot to sing, and so came in properly with the vocals only at the third line of the last verse.

The sound was good! Still, moments of the show like Time Again, which especially craves a colorfully accentuated contrast between solid rock grit and sophisticated prog-rock-cut acrobatics, showed that some of the keyboard lines were less audible. Or not audible enough. Geoff Downes was fenced in by stacks of keyboards on three sides. He instantly brought to mind Yes’s “Cape Crusader” Rick Wakeman (minus the outfit).Geoff is, one way or another, a member of prog-rock titans Yes again. Geoff’s vocoder worked wonderfully in coloring John Wetton’s famous vocal character, one of the most important elements by which the whole music of Asia is recognizable. Still, at a few points Geoff casually backed Wetton with his natural vocal tenor and so earned himself a few needless slip-ups.

The main engine pulling the wagon forward this evening, besides Wetton’s exceptional routine, with which the veteran would have almost fooled us had that sonic mishap not happened in Heat Of The Moment, was definitely the one and only Carl Palmer. For his age, Palmer is simply unsurpassed. He’s incredibly fast and explosive. He carries a rock-solid focus, real tenacity. He masterfully doses out that noisiness with famous jazz-broken transitions, a world-class one-of-a-kind in the amusement park that rock ‘n’ roll is. Palmer also earned himself a solo spot, in which he showed off the famous tricks of his drumming mastery, like the one where he lays a stick on the cymbal. Palmer is a distant relative of the Bill Bruford school – especially when you watch him “climb” across the tom-tom transitions, only he’s a class stiffer and noisily invasive in his actions. Along with young Coulson, Carl definitely delivered the most to the crowd tonight!

Asia played nothing but classics, with the exception of the new single Face On The Bridge (album »XXX«, 2012). They also put the excellent Go (»Astra«, 1985) in the setlist and rocked it out good and proper! Apart from the absolute sweetie and surprise of the evening, Days Like These, which was surely a bandage on the wound for everyone who expected a more interesting and longer setlist, the repertoire spun more or less predictably. The best of the best, in other words. Still, from the classics we missed at least The Heat Goes On, plus Here Comes The Feeling and Voice Of America. The band completely ignored the newer creative period with the albums »Phoenix« (2008), »Omega« (2010) and »XXX« (2012) in the setlist. Simply put, what we got was the most Asia could deliver this time for whatever money the organizer happened to offer them.

Asia are recording a new album, though. With Coulson, of course. It will surely be a much more rocked-up record than the previous four with Howe in the lineup. That’s exactly the kind of album Asia badly need in 2013, to liven up their predictable songwriting form and develop more stage dynamics along the way. Enough philosophizing! Asia presented themselves as the band we know from the studio recordings, a band that over the years of its long life has earned high reputation and respect. Masters remain masters. Let’s hope they show up on a new European tour soon. »Thank You Faak!« John Wetton shouted teasingly at the crowd in farewell, since as an Englishman he reads the word Faak quite differently.

But the night was far from over. There were hardly any pure-blooded bikers in the crowd. Only Asia fans, who after the Asia show emptied out the front of the stage quite substantially. Only the wise stayed to wait for Hayseed Dixie. The true-believing Hill Billy clowns, who for the next hour and fifteen minutes entertained everyone with sparkling, sharp-witted covers of classics by some of the biggest names in rock and metal, from Motörhead to Judas Priest, plus AC/DC, Queen, Green Day, Alice Cooper. For the intro to Hell’s Bells they simply helped themselves by tapping empty bottles, having first jokingly asked the audience if they knew the creepiest sound on this planet. The answer was dead simple. The sound of an empty bottle!

It’d be hard to find a better solution for the mind-switch-off you need on a Friday night! Once Hayseed Dixie appear before your eyes, all dilemmas are solved. These guys are hellishly tight, and between songs they chat with such an authentic “redneck” character that you can’t help but take them to heart. Above all, their brilliant sense of parody and satire counts, which they use to compensate for a streak of songwriting dysfunction. With it they win you over and convince you.

We can say that this year’s traditional pilgrimage to the “eternal city” of biker pilgrims, Faak Am See, brought a lot more hot-blooded “salto mortale twists” on stage than last year’s combination of acts, 10CC and Snakecharmer. The latter in particular had to settle for playing to a mere 50 people. So it’s not all about saving money. Asia aren’t a cheap band, but they are a recognized and big name on the rock map. That’s why the show kept a solid number of visitors throughout the course of events. You get it. For bikers, only the hot dance of strippers or the prize draw where you can win a brand new Harley Davidson motorcycle counts.

Even though Asia no longer churn out hits that shake the tops of the world charts, they remain a first-rate live attraction, holding onto enviable stamina for their age and superb stage form in delivering their famous classics of musical uniqueness and songwriting integrity. And even though Asia said their creative piece, more or less, long ago, the rock gurus and shamans, rejuvenated by Coulson, aren’t losing much sleep over it. They’ve caught a fresh wind in their sails, so it’s clear the story of the one and only Asia is nowhere near finished!