“What judge in this world would say, ‘OK, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna let you off, you just have to do the first show in the history of the Soviet Union,’” the manager pondered. “Nobody’s going to say that.”
That’s right. It was a strange theory. People believe all kinds of things.
It wasn’t the first show in the USSR. Elton John did a tour of the USSR in 1979, and Billy Joel did at least one in 1987. There may have been more.