ABBA Live In Australia 28 February 1977 - Press Conference

28 February 1977 - Sydney Australia

ABBA’s first major appearance on the Australian tour was at the press conference at the Sebel Town House in Elizabeth Bay on Monday, February 28, starting at 11.30 am. They answered many questions for the assembled media, posed for photographs and received a number of gold record awards from their local record company, RCA. Though two hundred media representatives were invited, over three hundred crowded into the hotel.

ABBA had a long schedule of interviews on this day starting with this Press Conference at 11.30am and concluding at 6.45pm.

 

One for New Zealand media, one for TV news and current affairs, one for radio and print, and several interviews for individual radio and TV programs, plus meeting with fans who had won a newspaper competition (seen in The Movie during I'm A Marionette). The TV press conference seen in The Movie was the third one. The Countdown interview was the last of day, at 6.15 pm.

ABBA Live In Australia 27th February 1977 - "They're Here!"

'They're Here !'

How excited were we ??

On 27th February 1977, ABBA arrived in Sydney for their Australian Tour.
They checked into the Sebel Town House Hotel in Elizabeth Bay where they faced the Australian media for a Press conference. Very cringe worthy ......

There had been much outrage in the Australian press that tickets for the concerts would cost $9 or more! When tickets went on sale in October 1976, fans all over the country queued for hours to secure tickets and every single concert was sold out. 
Images are from my personal collection.

 

ABBA 1976 Fernando @ Midi Premiere - Rare Video Clip

ABBA Perform On Melodifestivalen 43 Years Ago Today !

10th February 1973

ABBA perform 'Ring Ring' on Melodifestivalen in Sweden - the qualifier for the Eurovision Song Contest.

At that time, ABBA were still known, and introduced, by their names - their full introduction on the show was 'Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog. It wouldn't be until 1974 that they went by the name of ABBA - and I am sure everyone was happy to make the change !

Melodifestivalen 1973 had 10 competitors and ABBA came in at 3rd place with 8 points. The winning act had 37 points, with second place on 29 points. ABBA were certainly not the flavour of the day at that time - not with the judges anyway - an audience vote may have changed things.
However, with Agnetha heavily pregnant, and without the ABBA style established, I think the song/performance suffered a bit. Imagine if they had performed this song in the well known 'Ring Ring' costumes, doing their gorgeous choreography - they would have won the show for sure ! :D

It would have been very interesting I think, to see ABBA performing 'Ring Ring' at Eurovision in 1973 - against such acts as Cliff Richards - quite a contrast there :)

It was in preparation for the possibly of performing at Eurovision in 1973, that 'Ring Ring' was translated into English - Stig and the boys understood the importance of performing the song in English for Eurovision - much wider appeal and acceptance.
A shame that never happened.

The winning song that went on to represent Sweden was "Sommar'n Som Aldrig Säger Nej" (The Summer That Never Says No) by 'Malta' (renamed Nova & The Dolls for the Eurovision Song Contest) and ended up coming 5th. One half of the duo 'Malta', was Claes af Geijerstam who was ABBA's sound engineer on the 1979 Tour and Frida's co-host for the 4 TV shows in 1981 "Lite Grand i Örat".

The program has never been released on video or DVD and the story goes that although the broadcast was taped at the time, it was later erased by STV.

Thankfully though, we at least have an audio recording of this historic performance - this audio includes their introduction: 

For much more detail on Melodifestvalen 1973, go to Sara Russell's website 'ABBA ON TV' here:
http://www.abbaontv.com/1973/description-melodifestivalen1.html

Weren't they so cute ? :)
Love the group shot with all the other acts from 1973.

I am sooooo glad the 'ABBA' style kicked in not too much later - along with everything else that was fabulous about ABBA - the best was definitely yet to come :)

Why Were ABBA Recorded At The Royal Albert Hall In 1977 ?

Great post from Carl Magnus Palm about research for the revised & expanded edition of his fabulous book 'ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions'.

Check out details for the book here:

http://www.carlmagnuspalm.com/abba/books/abba-the-complete-recording-sessions-expanded-edition/faq

I pre-ordered my copy way back and cannot wait until it is completed - very exciting ! :)

"When wrong turns into right"

• Why were ABBA recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in 1977?

I've mentioned a number of times how I've long been itching to revise and update ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions, and how good it feels to finally be able to do that. The main reason, of course, is to help us all know and understand more about how ABBA wrote and recorded their music, through listening to unreleased alternate mixes and so on. But almost as important is the opportunity to correct the errors and misconceptions of the original edition.

I was reminded of this the other day as I was revising the section about the recording made of one of ABBA's Royal Albert Hall concerts in February 1977. As far as I've been able to ascertain, no filming was made at this venue for inclusion in what was to become ABBA - The Movie, as stated in the original edition of the book (I don't quite remember where that information came from), since it had long since been decided to film ABBA's concerts in Australia in March. Nor, it seems, was the 24-track-recording made to serve as a soundtrack to such a film - it wasn't even commissioned by Polar but by... Furthermore, the recording as such was produced by... And the reason for the making the recording was probably... Well, those details, along with other corrected stories and innumerable brand new insights into ABBA's songs and recordings, will be revealed in the revised and updated edition of ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions.

Support this exciting book project by pre-ordering your copy (which will be personally signed to you) here:

http://www.carlmagnuspalm.com/abba/books/abba-the-complete-recording-sessions-expanded-edition/faq#Where%20can%20I%20pre-order%20this%20book?