YAY!
Thank god for that. Boring, boring guitarist.
He's just about bearable in Yes, becaue they aren't purely a rock band, so his little quirks don't seem so bad.
But watching Asia on the reunion tour where 4 old men just stood there, and then the guitar solo was a skinny balding old school teacher-lookalike standing on one leg playing some 1930's ragtime number... well, it was mortifying.
They could continue with another guitarist, but I think they'd still be boring. John Wetton's voice is way past it's prime, Geoff's keyboards sound like something that should be played on the end of a pier while a magic act is performing to 20 people and Carl Palmer has been pretty ill of late.
Just let "Asia featuring John Payne" become "Asia", and let them carry on going forward. They have much more energy, and have a bigger back catalogue to draw from.
Sad thing is, if "Old Asia Pensioners" disband, Geoff will be full time in Yes :-( Oliver Wakeman deserves that job.
Niv