ON THIS Day – 10th March 1977
ABBA Live In Australia !
Perth,
Western Australia
Perth
Entertainment Centre
Wellington
Street, Perth
Tickets: $9.00
Sound &
String Rehearsal: 3.00pm
Show
One: 6.00pm
Show
Two: 9.00pm
Both shows
sold out – 8000 tickets sold for each show.
Tonight ABBA
would perform the first two shows of the five they were doing in Perth.
Wow, what a
big day this was in Perth – two concerts in one night !
But
performing two concerts would not be the biggest thing to happen on this day
for ABBA.
Audience
members started arriving at the Entertainment Centre long before the first show
was to begin. Although this was a fully reserved seating event - so need to
line up, panic, run – I can understand that it was too exciting to not be there
really early. The atmosphere would have been awesome in that crowd. I remember
a real buzz in the air when waiting in line in Sydney – the knowledge that you
were all there for a common purpose, to see ABBA ! – the buzz of excitement,
anticipation – it really was a fantastic feeling to experience.
Show One
started on time at 6.00pm and went beautifully and without a hitch to an
adoring audience.
Well, that
was until about 20 minutes before the end of the show according to reports.
However, it
was during Intermezzo No. 1 that the hitch occurred, so it had to be a little earlier
in the show than that.
As you will
recall from scenes in ‘ABBA The Movie’, Benny gets quite involved when he is
performing this piece – it’s an absolute joy to watch him.
Also during
this performance, the other 3 ABBA members are not on stage – it’s just Benny
and the musos.
So it is not
strange I guess, that Benny was unaware that a situation was unfolding while he
played.
A phone call
was received by staff at the Entertainment Centre around 7pm. The caller, a
woman, told the staff member that there was a bomb planted in the Centre to
kill ABBA. They were told it was due to go off at 8.05pm – just after the 2
hour show ended. Hmmm, did the person think the show went longer than 2 hours ?
The
information was given to Bjorn who was backstage at that time – and the
decision was made by Bjorn to evacuate.
The funny
thing is, they must not have passed on the information to ABBA at first. Intermezzo comes further along in the show
than halfway – which is where they would have been up to at 7pm. I guess there
was discussion among staff first.
Benny was
not privy to this information straight away.
After his
number was finished, he noticed all the musicians had left the stage.
He also
noticed that no one was coming back on stage. He told the audience “wait a
minute” and consulted a stagehand. He then left the stage.
Then a voice
came through the amplifier telling the 8000 people that there would be a
15-minute internal. They were asked to leave the hall in an orderly fashion.
Bomb threat was not mentioned to the audience.
A member of
the Entertainment Centre staff told “The West Australian”, “We have had bomb
scares before, but have never taken any notice of them. It was Abba’s decision
to empty the hall.” Honestly, how laid back were Aussies ? lol
ABBA were
taken to their cars and drove away from the Centre.
The audience
moved outside – assuming this was just an intermission - and were greeted by
another 8000 people already waiting for 9.00pm show !
Police and
bomb squad experts did a search of the Centre. They found nothing.
The show was
delayed for about an hour – but ABBA returned, the entire audience returned,
and the show went on.
Bjorn said
of the audience afterwards “You love them even more after what they had to go
through.” I find that very sweet – that he considered the audience went through
something terrible – whereas it was ABBA that went through the terrible time.
I am sure
most of you would be aware of the bomb scare in Perth. It is just a part of the
history for the Australian Tour – as with the rain in Sydney.
But when you
really give it some thought, you realise just how awful it must have been, for
ABBA in particular.
I say them
in particular, because Aussies were so used to bomb threats ! lol
ABBA however,
had never been the target of a threat such as this before. They already knew
Australians were crazy – so anything was possible right ? But this was extra
crazy.
How scary
for them not knowing how real the risk may or may not be.
It certainly
would have had an effect on long term memories of this country, I’m sure.
I really
hate that this happened to ABBA in Australia – and I feel shame about it.
But it just
seemed to be the standard thing for certain people to do back then – make an
anonymous phone call and say there’s a bomb somewhere. Easy bit of fun.
Untraceable. Nuts !
They wouldn’t
get away with that sort of fun these days would they ?
It really is
annoying that this hoax took the limelight away from the actual concert –
reports from ABBA’s first shows in Perth were about this instead of the
performances.
It would be
great to see some reviews for these shows.
The second
show would have run until at least midnight if the reports on timing are
accurate. Long night for them. I wonder how well they slept that night ?
Check out
the comments below for some images and articles – and if you have any others,
please do share J
Just one
last thought – what happened with the concert tickets for Perth ? They really
missed out having standard Entertainment Centre tickets – not the beautiful
large picture tickets everywhere else had with the signatures on the back. I
wonder why that happened ?
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