Lubeh
Lubeh (Russian: Любэ, also romanized as Lyube, Ljube or Lube) is a Russian rock band from Lubertsy, a suburb of Moscow. The band consists of Nikolay Rastorguyev (vocals), Vitaliy Loktev (keyboards, accordion), Aleksandr Erokhin (drums), Anatoliy Kuleshov (backing vocals, choral master), Aleksey Khokhlov (guitar), Pavel Usanov (bass guitar), Aleksey Tarasov (backing vocals), and Yuriy Rymanov (guitar). The band's producer and main songwriter has been Igor Matvienko.
Musical style
Lubeh's music combines elements of Western rock and roll, traditional Russian folk music and military bard music. Starting in 1989, they have released 16 albums.
The group
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. The album Rasseya, released in 2004, includes a remake of one of their older songs and a rock rendition of the Hymn of the Russian Federation. Lubeh has only produced one song in English, called No More Barricades, which deals with Russian democracy.
Lubeh is one of the few rock and roll groups whose audience garners a wide listening audience. Fans and concert-goers are from a wide range of ages, including seniors, teenagers, children and parents. At least one of their concerts has been attended by former Russian president Vladimir Putin who happens to be a big fan.
Their name comes from that of the Moscow suburb of Lyubertsy, which during the late 1980s and early 1990s was a center of luber culture, whose values are in part reflected in Lubeh's songs.
Notable songs
- "Atas!" - inspired by the 1979 Soviet TV-miniseries The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed about criminals in post World War II Moscow, which became a hit and made the band famous in 1991
- "Bat'ka Mahno" - a song on the anarchist Nestor Makhno was made twice, put in three albums
- "Ne valyai duraka, Amerika!" - a humorous song about Alaska's purchase by the U.S.
- "Kombat" - A tribute to World War II veterans. Commonly mistaken for "one of many songs inspired by Lyube's experiences in Chechnya, where they performed on many occasions, in order to boost the morale of the Russian army". The Russian word "Kombat" does not mean "combat", but is the standard military abbreviation for "BATtalion COMmander".
- "Soldat" - similar to "Kombat".
- "Stantsiya Taganskaya" - a song inspired by the Moscow Metro station of the same name.
- "Ty nesi menya reka..." - the most popular of Lubeh's many themes to Russian TV series
- "Beryozy" - a theme from the 2003 TV series Uchastok, used on two albums
- "Davay za" - theme from the television miniseries Spetsnaz
Discography
- Атас (Atas, slang for "alert" — 1989)
- Кто сказал, что мы плохо жили..? (Kto skazal, chto my plokho zhili...?, "who said that we lived badly?" — 1992)
- Зона Любэ (Zona lyube, "Lyube zone" — 1993)
- Комбат (Kombat, "battalion commander" — 1996)
- Собрание сочинений (Sobranie sochineniy, "collected works" — 1996)
- Песни о людях (Pesni o ludyakh, "songs about people" — 1997)
- Песни из концертной программы "Песни о людях" (Iz kontsertnoy programmy "Pesni o ludyakh" ("From the concert programs of 'Songs about people'", two-disc concert recording — 1998)
- Полустаночки (Polustanochki, "substations" — 2000)
- Собрание сочинений. Том 2 (Sobranie sochineniy, Tom 2, "collected works, volume 2" — 2001)
- Давай за… (Davay za..., "let's do it for..." — 2002)
- Юбилей. Лучшие песни (Yubilej. Luchshiye Pesni, "anniversary, best of", two-disc concert recording — 2002)
- Ребята нашего полка (Rebyata nashego polka, "the guys in our regiment" — 2004)
- Рассея (Rasseya, "Russia" with a typically patriotic spelling variation — 2005)
- В России (V Rossiyi, "in Russia" — 2007)
- Собрание сочинений. Том 3 (Sobranie sochinenyi. Tom 3, "collected works volume 3" — 2008)
- Свои (Svoi, "ours" — 2009)
External links