The Petra Zone

Great news: PETRA is coming back together again to do an 40th Anniversary Tour in 2013.
They will also be touring with the bands ELO, Asia and Genesis !
Read more here: http://www.petraband.com/content/40th-anniversary-tour

THIS IS REALLY GREAT NEWS!

Here's the official statement from John that will be going out shortly:

PETRA - The Classic Rock Tour 2013

Petra (John Schlitt, Bob Hartman, Greg Bailey and Cristian Borneo) has been invited to perform on The Classic Rock Tour 2013, slated to kickoff this March. Included in the tour are Asia featuring John Payne, ELO Part II alumni Phil Bates (The Music of Electric Light Orchestra Klassik) and former Genesis frontman Ray Wilson (Genesis Classic) joining on select dates.

The Touring package will present various combinations of the bands in both the U.S. and Europe.

“This tour is an amazing opportunity to bring Petra’s music to audiences that may not have ever heard of us,” states frontman John Schlitt. “Bob (Hartman) and I welcome the opportunity to perform before a whole new crowd and are very excited about going out together again.”

Not wanting to leave the Christian market behind, Petra is opening up its touring schedule to include limited bookings in the United States and Europe as well.

“Petra always has been first and foremost a Christian rock band,” reflects Schlitt. “There’s no doubt about where we stand or where our focus is. We want to be available to play wherever we’re needed - be it secular or Christian,” declares Schlitt.

In addition to reuniting with Petra, Schlitt will continue to tour with his own band and as a soloist in support of his 2012 release, “The Greater Cause.”

“I’m very blessed to have the best of both worlds,” says Schlitt. “I’m able to tour with some of the best musicians - in my band and in Petra. It’s a unique situation and I’m looking forward to playing with all the guys!”

For more information on The Classic Rock Tour 2013, visit http://www.classicrocktour.com.

Good news for John and Bob. I just wish the band was the Dream Team, or at least Louie on Drums.

Interesting to say the least. I'm very excited about this, do not know much about Asia. Hopefully they will come around here. With this & CP Bob is going to be very busy next year. I know Bob has said he really wants to get back to the JAH style, so a successful tour could bring new music from the version of the band. BTW petraband.com has a new look & content.

Looks like Classic Petra will be on hiatus for the next year. Here is what was said over at the Classic Petra Facebook page

Over the past two years or so, the Classic Petra line-up has toured the world, released 'Back To The Rock' - and again touched the lives of thousands of people the world over.

Today, there are new opportunities for the Petra line-up of Bob Hartman, John Schlitt, Greg Bailey and Cristian Borneo, and these are also 'must do's'.

There are also incredible new things in store for Greg and Louie and also Mark and John Lawry individually that we'll be announcing as soon as details develop.

Classic Petra is not 'winding down' per se, but will not be on the road in 2013, as everyone will be working on other projects. All of those projects *are* part of the extended Petra family, though, so it's a time of great excitement!

Many people are expressing disappointment that the promised new Classic Petra album is not going to happen anytime soon. I also made a post expressing disappointment and asking if we could have some answers as to why promises expressed to Classic Petra fans about what to expect were not kept. Unfortunately, my post was removed. I don't think I said anything out of line, but I guess for some reason they don't want to answer the questions I asked, at least not publicly.

I think things change(especially in this business) I really do think CP has waited too long to get anything done, and another opportunity came up that Bob jumped at. The thing I'm wondering about is why not CP in place instead of "Farewell Petra" for this opportunity?

Good news!!

he thing I'm wondering about is why not CP in place instead of "Farewell Petra" for this opportunity?

The bigger question for me is why not use both. I mean it seems like a 40th Anniversary Tour would be the ideal time to bring everyone to the party.

Preacherman777 wrote:

he thing I'm wondering about is why not CP in place instead of "Farewell Petra" for this opportunity?

The bigger question for me is why not use both. I mean it seems like a 40th Anniversary Tour would be the ideal time to bring everyone to the party.

Good point, but a tour with other bands that would really limit stage time and then $$$ would be smaller for everyone involved.

Yawning..........Kind of getting tired of this lineup. No real history for a 40 year anniversary. Sad to hear that Classic Petra is not touring in 2013. At least I got to see the super show in Tulsa. If this tour comes to Tulsa I will not go.

Reasons why that won't happen.

Money
Ego
Demand

I should say that I had a nice conversation with Dean tonight, who was gracious enough to call me and offer to answer my questions concerning the situation with Classic Petra. Hopefully, a statement can be made in the near future to better address and manage any concerns or disappointment about the situation. I can tell you this much for now, I am satisfied that there are good reasons for everything that is going on and that Classic Petra has not broken up or reached it's end.

One thing I will say is that if we are going to get the Farewell version of Petra again, I seriously hope they make some radical changes to the set list. By and large the set list hasn't changed much since the Farewell tour, and quite frankly I'm bored to tears with that set list and I don't think I'd make the effort to go see them if I knew they were still doing the same stuff. Two years of Classic Petra shows represented a nice change and I'd really hate to go back to the same old, same old.

Now we really need JAH2. This is indeed great news.

The site for this tour has already been up for a while and we heard about the photo shoot, so it's not really a surprise. Good that they made changes to petraband.com as well.

Ok here is what first popped into my head after reading the release. John Payne is not what I consider real Asia. There are two Asia bands out there and one is full of original members and the other has John Payne. Payne was a replacement and played with a couple of originals until they quit too, leaving Payne as the most original member in the band. After a few years the founding members decided they wanted to reunite as Asia- only Asia was still around w/ John Payne. An agreement was made allowing Payne to keep the Asia name but I think it has to read "Asia W/ John Payne." ELO part II is not quite ELO, as the name would indicate. Now that brings us to Petra- there are a couple different Petra lineups that are different degrees of authentic. The one listed in the release is probably closer to pure Petra than the Asia or ELO lineups are to each respective band. They fit right in in that regard. I wonder what songs Petra will include since out of Asia and ELO, Petra has fewer mainstream hits (zero?) andis the least prog rock of them all.

upon further reading it looks like Just one member from ELO part 2 Phil Bates will be joining them- sorry I originally misread that part...