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| Molly Meldrum With ABBA In Sweden |
ABBA Mania Down Under: bomb scares, a coup for the blues and the $800 school lunchbox
by Neil McMahon
There are countless memorable, magic and mad ABBA moments from a wild
run of Australian success that peaked with nationwide mania during
their 1977 concert tour.
From the up-close encounters of Molly
Meldrum to the lucrative passion for ABBA memorabilia, here is a
collection of ABBA memories shared with Fairfax Media to mark the 40th
anniversary of the tour that stopped the nation.
Keys to the city
Melbourne Town Hall - where ABBA appeared on the balcony as The
Beatles had done in 1964 - is still home to a piano played by members of
both bands.
"People all around the world know what Melbourne Town Hall looks like
thanks to widespread vision of The Beatles waving from the balcony in
1964 and ABBA on the same balcony in 1977," says Lord Mayor Robert
Doyle. "Iconic moments for both super groups and our town hall."
Show stopper
During one of their Perth shows, ABBA were forced to flee the stage
after a bomb threat. Tour manager Michael Chugg approached pianist Benny
Andersson mid-song.
"I said, 'Excuse me, but there's a bomb scare, you need to leave the
stage'. He looked at me, they finished the song and they left the stage.
I got on the microphone, we emptied the hall out, nice and orderly. And
then of course the copper comes up and says, 'There's no bomb, you can
bring them all back and finish the show'."
Money, money, money
Australian producer Reg Grundy owned exclusive rights to ABBA
merchandise, creating a worldwide collectors market that can be
lucrative for anyone who held on to that ABBA schoolbag or lunchbox.
Says
Australian fan and keen collector Roxanne Dickson: "It depends on
condition and what colour it is because certain colours are more rare …
but they can range from $250 to $800 per lunch box."
Blue coup
During their Melbourne visit, Carlton Football Club pulled off one of the great PR coups thanks to club GM Keith McKenzie.
"When
we knew they were about to land at Tullamarine I told our marketing
bloke Michael Whitewood, 'Grab a couple of guernseys, get up to the
airport and take them out to ABBA'", McKenzie says.
ABBA singers Agnetha and Frida even wore the jumpers years later in a film clip.
The bodyguard
Martial arts expert Richard Norton was hired as a tour bodyguard - but ended up the band's personal trainer as well.
"I
suggested to Anna and Frida that maybe they would want to do a little
workout .. and it snowballed from there. They ended up working out just
about every day at their hotel. We'd either be down by the swimming pool
or on a beach. They thoroughly enjoyed the whole idea of that."
A long way to the top
Where Ian "Molly" Meldrum flew to Sweden tor ABBA's Australian tour
announcement in 1976, he found an Australian band on the rise were busy
conquering Sweden.
"ABBA were just wonderful to me," says Meldrum.
"Really, really lovely. During the day they'd be showing me around
shops and that sort of thing and I was amazed because in a lot of the
record shops were posters of AC/DC."
Faking it
Lasse Hallstrom, creator of the band's famous film clips and later an Oscar nominated director, shot
ABBA: The Movie
during the 1977 Australian tour - but many scenes passed off as
Australia in the film were shot in Sweden because during the tour there
was no proper script.
"We made it up as we went along," says future
Neighbours
star Tom Oliver, who played their bodyguard. "It wasn't till we went to
Stockholm that he put some semblance of a script together."
Stop the presses
When the album
Arrival was released four months before the
1977 tour, record company RCA went to extraordinary lengths to meet
massive demand for a band that had sold nearly 3 million records in
Australia in a year.
"Every record plant in Australia was pressing
Arrival - never happened in history - so it could be dropped
simultaneously in all the stores," says then RCA publicist Annie Wright.
High notes
Australia is home to one of the world's only ABBA choirs, the
Canberra-based Andante Andante choir who once sang for the King and
Queen of Sweden.
ABBA keeps other performers busy too: the stage show
Mamma Mia
is being revived for a national tour starting in November, and a star
of the original Australian production, stage legend Rhonda Burchmore,
has her own ABBA-themed show in the works.
And the NSW town of Trundle is holding its annual ABBA festival in May.
Thank you for the music
After
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert helped spark an ABBA revival in the 1990s, director Stephan Elliott received belated thanks.
"One
day this box arrived in the post and it was the full collection of
everything they ever recorded. It was signed by all four of them and
somebody had written, 'Dear Stephan - Thank you for the money'."
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/abba-mania-down-under-bomb-scares-a-coup-for-the-blues-and-the-800-school-lunchbox-20170218-gug3je.html
