On This Day
- 8th March 1976
40 years ago
today !
Monday 8th
March
Studio 9,
GTV9, Melbourne, Australia
ABBA
travelled to Melbourne for an appearance on The Don Lane Show, a nationally
televised talk and variety show on the Channel 9 network.
After
rehearsals during the day the show was broadcast live that night, with ABBA
performing their just-released single ‘Fernando’ as well as ‘SOS’, and chatting
with host Don Lane.
Agnetha
taught Don how to pronounce her name, then Frida tried to teach him how to
pronounce the the Swedish sound "sju". Björn teased him about
the Swedish tongue-twister "Sjutusensjuhundrasjuttisju sjösjuka
sjömän" (7,777 Seasick Sailors!).
ABBA had to
sneak out through the garage of their hotel to reach the TV studio due to fans
besieging the hotel.
It had long
been believed that this clip had been erased from the archives however, the
great news from summer 2006 was that it had been found. It was
transferred from the live-to-air recording tape to a Umatic-segments tape in
1976 and then was discarded by Channel 9 in 1978 but luckily saved by someone
before it got to the rubbish bin. Apparently Channel 9 regularly chucked
out stuff they didn't want any more to save tape and storage space - this
included. They've probably regretted the decision many times since!
The show was
LIVE in some states on Monday and Thursday nights at 9.30pm. It went out LIVE
in Sydney and Melbourne and was recorded from air to be played in other areas
who didn't get it live, then copied over as the wanted segments had already
been transferred to segments tapes.
Apparently
there's 5 minutes more footage from behind-the-scenes lurking around somewhere!
There was a trailer for when it aired in another state the following week in Adelaide on Wednesday nights.
There was a trailer for when it aired in another state the following week in Adelaide on Wednesday nights.
