About the band
YEARS ACTIVE : 1989
HOME CITY : Lubertsy
Lubeh (Russian: Любэ) (also romanized as Lyube, Ljube or simply Lube) are a folk/rock band from Lubertsy (Moscow suburb), Russia. The band consists of Nikolay Rastorguyev (vocals), Vitaliy Loktev (keyboards, accordion), Aleksandr Erokhin (drums), Anatoliy Kuleshov (back vocals, choral master), Aleksey Khokhlov (guitar), Pavel Usanov (bass guitar), Aleksey Tarasov (back vocals), and Yuriy Rymanov (guitar). The band’s producer and main songwriter has been Igor Matvienko.
Lubeh’s music harmoniously combines elements of Western rock and roll, traditional Russian folk music and military bard music. Starting in 1989 with their first release, they have released 13 albums inside of Russia.
The band has six members, led by the singer Nikolay Rastorguyev, one of the People’s Artists of Russia. In the mid-1990s, the band surprisingly released an album of Beatles covers. Their latest album, Rasseya, released in 2004, included a remake of one of their older songs and a rock and roll rendition of the Hymn of the Russian Federation. Lubeh has only produced one English language song, called No More Barricades, which sings about Russian democracy.
Lubeh is one of the few rock and roll groups whose audience garners a wide listening audience. Concert-goers are typically of any age, including seniors, teenagers, children and their parents. At least one of their concerts was attended by Vladimir Putin.
Their name comes from that of the Moscow suburb of Lubertsy, which during the late 1980s and early 1990s was a center of gopnik (luber) culture, whose values were in part reflected in Lubeh’s songs.