UFO: 'A Visual Biography' Due In February

Wymer Publishing has announced the launch of "UFO: A Visual Biography", due for release on February 25.

This A4 224-page hardback coffee table book by esteemed author Martin Popoff is crammed full of memorabilia, including backstage passes, gig posters, media adverts and much more.

Following on from the success of his two previous UFO books, Popoff takes us on a visual journey through the bands entire career from 1968. Despite lead singer Phil Mogg saying he would retire, the band continues to tour with plans for 2022 in the pipeline.

A glorious pictorial celebration of the band's full career, this visual biography timeline acts as a reference book, including the side projects, and documents the parallel career paths of UFO and Michael Schenker since 1980, along with WAYSTED. It covers it all in one mighty tome crammed full of stunning visuals including many previously unpublished photos.

UFO recently announced that it will embark on its final tour featuring a series of exclusive concerts in summer 2022 to bid farewell to its fans in style. At the grand finale of an unprecedented success story, which began in 1969 and has spanned more than five decades, the band has announced a number of real highlights: The first one is scheduled to take place on Monday, June 20, 2022 at the Beatbox in Hannover, where UFO is planning a public rehearsal, with a strictly limited number of only 80 tickets available. One day later, on Tuesday, June 21, 2022, the band will perform a private open-air concert in front of an audience of 300, presenting the full set-list of the subsequent tour, and coming into exceptionally close contact with their fans. UFO will then play the very last concert of its long career on October 29, 2022 in Athens, Greece, where the band performed its first show featuring current guitarist Vinnie Moore in February 2004.

Mogg is anticipating this very special farewell show with mixed feelings, while also very much looking forward to UFO once again meeting their extensive fan base between summer and autumn 2022.

Mogg, who turned 73 in April, said: "After so many years with countless highlights, fantastic experiences and lots of beautiful memories — as well as some difficult moments, naturally — it'll be a worthy finale to say goodbye to your fans in person. I know that there are bound to be some very emotional moments on both sides."

In his original statement announcing UFO's final tour, Mogg said the decision was "a long time coming," adding that while "being out on the road isn't always tremendously luxurious and although the playing is as great as it ever was, the stuff that surrounds it becomes very tiresome. I always told myself that when I reached that stage, I would step down, and that's what I'm going to do. This is the right time for me to quit."

UFO's latest release was the 2017 covers collection "The Salentino Cuts".