Music notes: Reunited Asia plays the Arcada

Prog popsters

The progressive-pop band Asia emerged in the early 1980s and featured vets from a number of legendary prog-rock bands of the day like Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Asia melded the grand, keyboard-heavy sound of progressive rock to contemporary pop melodies, and as a result scored huge hits like “Only Time Will Tell” and “Heat of the Moment,” both of which landed in heavy rotation on the young cable network MTV. The original members of the band — John Welton, Carl Palmer, Steve Howe and Geoff Downes — are touring again and have a stop scheduled in the suburbs.

8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2, at the Arcada Theatre, 105 E. Main St., St. Charles. $39 to $125. Go to oshows.com.

Back with ‘Brick'

Ian Anderson, former frontman for the legendary British band Jethro Tull, will bring his flute to Chicago this weekend to perform Tull's classic concept-album parody, “Thick as a Brick,” in its entirety. Tull's sound consisted of traditional, blues-based guitar rock and instrumental touches more commonly associated with progressive rock — Anderson's aforementioned flute along with strings and keyboards. Anderson has said “Thick as a Brick,” the 1972 album that featured just one song spread out over two sides of an LP, was intended to spoof what he saw as the pretentiousness of prog-rock bands.

8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2, at the Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St., Chicago. $48 to $103. Go to thechicagotheatre.com.

Folk-rock duo

For nearly 30 years, the Indigo Girls have been creating and performing literate folk-rock for a devoted group of fans. The duo of Amy Ray and Emily Sailers has been releasing albums steadily since the late 1980s, and its most recent is 2011's “Beauty Queen Sister.”

8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, at the Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora. $45 to $55. Go to paramountaurora.com.