Page "Uriah Heep (band)" Paragraph 27

The lineup remained unchanged from 1986 until 2007, being veteran Mick Box at the helm, Trevor Bolder on bass, Lee Kerslake on drums, vocalist Bernie Shaw and Phil Lanzon on keyboards.

Their principal tour circuit has been in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Japan and Russia.

In December 1987 they were the first ever Western band to play in Soviet Russia, under Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost.

At Moscow's Olympic Stadium the band played ten consecutive nights to a total of 180, 000 people ( following a reception that Bernie Shaw remembered as being " something like Beatlemania ") which was represented in the international press as not just an achievement for Uriah Heep but a major breakthrough for Western music in general.

The concerts were recorded and issued as the Live in Moscow album which included three new tracks.

Ironically, it was this behind the Iron Curtain excursion that did well to re-establish Heep's name back at home.

After a series of sell-out dates in Czechoslovakia, East Berlin and Bulgaria the band returned to Britain for the Reading Festival in August 1988, and toured the UK with The Dogs D ' Amour.

Raging Silence, produced by Richard Dodd and released in May 1989, was followed by a return to the Soviet Union, concerts in Poland, East Berlin, six dates in Brazil and another British tour.

" The last two years have been the most enjoyable of all my time in Heep ," Trevor Bolder was quoted to say at the time.

The band played in the Central TV studios in Nottingham ( the film was shown as part of the Independent TV series " Bedrock " and a few years later it was repeated in the Cue Music series ) and celebrated its 20th Anniversary with a series of compilations and re-issues.