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I created this blog to help share ABBA information with other fans and to show off my new collection items :)


Please note: Collection item photos are from my own personal collection. These are not stock photos. If you wish to use any of my photos elsewhere, please have the courtesy to ask first - Thank you :)

Thursday 14 December 2017

ABBA Super Troupers The Exhibition - Press Conference And Fan Review !


You can purchase items from the online shop now !!!

Available merchandise so far:



http://shop.southbankcentre.co.uk/abba.html

Kacey O'Neill from United Kingdom has put in an amazing effort to bring us details and her personal review of ABBA Super Troupers - The Exhibition which opened at the Southbank Centre in London today.

Kacey managed to attend the Press Preview on 13th December - and yes, Bjorn was there !

You can follow any updates on the Facebook page ABBA Info or keep checking back here as Kacey will be providing further information and photos.

ABBA Info

Kacey's Review:

ABBA: Super Troupers. - The Review (by Kacey O'Neill)

I made it to the Press Preview of ABBA: Super Troupers on Wednesday 13th December. With representatives from every organisation involved in putting this exhibition together to Universal Music including Mia Segolsson. For fans the important players that were present: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Gorel Hanser and Ingmarie Halling. The room was packed waiting for the speeches to be done as an introduction to the press for ABBA: Super Troupers. Bjorn sat in front of us whilst all this was going on, just another man, another visitor waiting to do his speech. He hadn’t realise how gloomy the United Kingdom must have been at that time as ABBA started out on their road to fame. However on that note I must point out despite the black outs and three day weeks, as a very young child I remember our home was a safe and happy one. Maybe less is more in the current climate of materialism. My friend Luke has his photo taken with Gorel after he had interviewed her for his radio show. She was happy to have her photo taken with him and said to me ‘’It’s good to see someone with a real camera taking photos’’. Helga from the ABBA Fan Club and I later allowed Luke loose with the camera so he could take our photo in front in the ABBA: Super Troupers Exhibition projection display.

Onto the actual exhibition itself. The three of us were booked in for the 11:15 tour. What you have to remember the additional people attending this tour are also reviewing the exhibition and most probably not ABBA fans with the knowledge and expectations and may not fully understand the why the rooms are set out in such a way. Also the exhibition with it’s artefacts and displays isn’t souley about ABBA. It is also intertwined with the country’s memories of 1970’s Britain and what it was like during that time. This exhibition is very different to ABBA World and ABBA The Museum. You cannot compare ABBA: Super Troupers to these as that would be unfair and out of context to what The Southbank Centre are aiming to achieve. With this in mind you will have wiped all memories of previous exhibitions seen and enjoy the Super Troupers exhibition for what it is and step back in time.

Our guide on this tour was Neil – I must add he also a fully fledged ABBA fan and enjoying every minute of the work and his job in hand. - We go through a door of a vinyl record into a room of darkness which soon lights up gradually with a Super Trouper spotlight in and a disco ball behind us. As we progress through each room we get plenty of information from our guide interspersed by narrative presented by Jarvis Cocker. An unexpected choice in fans eyes but his voice brings a familiarity to the whole presentation. As ABBA songs are played through the speakers and press people guess the songs there is an odd sensation of movement with the lights and disco ball spinning, but you are not moving you are standing still. As the tour progresses you walk through a series of secret doors from wardrobes – a Narnia moment – to caravans and toilet doors.

Next room we move into is a typical 1970’s living room, wow what a throwback. Old TV that works showing archive news footage (you come to realise that history repeats in a different scenario but we never learn), radio, a collection of vinyl and through a window a snatched moment of a kitchen cabinets too. ABBA posters, Lookin magazines, paper doll cut outs, badges, some archive material and Ring Ring Gold Disc in a frame. Ok, there is a copy of the band’s album ‘Ring, Ring’ on prominent display in the vinyl. The ABBA fan of the house could have bought this on import from Adrian’s Records as the band’s popularity grew during that decade. However Luke and I spotted a copy of an LP by Anita Dobson so that was definitely out of place being released in the 1980’s. From here on you understand and realise the reasons why you cannot take photos of the exhibition. With 16 people going from room to room, photo opportunities are difficult (mobile phones get some interference for some reason so it’s best to switch them off) and most likely detract from actual tour talk/presentation and may annoy other attendees.

We move onto the next room and for anyone that is tall some doorways you will have to dip down unless you want to bang your head! We wait in a small hotel corridor and spot the Fire Extinguisher with the name ‘Waterloo’. The Napoleon Suite being aptly named may have prompted Benny at the time to place a bet on winning the Eurovision Song Contest. All good omens. We go through the door and as Bjorn says in an interview is the replica of Agnetha and Bjorn’s suite. You can see celebrations have gone on in this room after ABBA;s win of the Eurovision Song Contest. Glasses having been filled with drink, bottles of champagne and chinzano – remember that drink? – You have the replica Waterloo costumes visible through glass and a replica of Bjorn’s star guitar displayed right in the middle of the double bed. You watch ABBA’s performance at the Eurovision Song Contest on a TV screen whilst perusing through a copy of the local newspaper on the table featuring all the Eurovision artists. There are news clippings displayed on the victory, a replica of the Eurovision medal, Agnetha’s hat and other archive material to view. This is one of my favourite rooms of the tour.
We move onto the Folkes Park room through the bedroom wardrobe and it is here we have some experience of the Swedish Folk Parks where thee ABBA members would have performed. Warm balmy nights, hot summer days with microphones, piano all ready for rehearsal. There is sheet music photos and doodles by Frida,, Bjorn’s school report, military enrolment book and other archive material.

The next room was another favourite of mine. The Polar Studios. Here you are given a set of headphones to put on to listen to your tour guide, the narration and of course ABBA’s wonderful music. You see Agnetha’s head phones, an ABBA Magazine reporting on ABBA in the studio, hand written manuscripts, archive material all set out in a recording studio. There is a 2 track analog 1/4’’ tape recorder 24 track analog 2’’ tape recorder along with other studio equipment. You get the chance to hear ‘Money Money Money’ and mix up or mix down the track which is great fun to do and hear. and on the video screen in the actual studio you get to see and hear the video clip of the missing verse of ‘’Dancing Queen’’ that us fans already know about but most press unaware of and whilst this is playing you get your own chance to sing the chorus of ‘’Dancing Queen’’ live in the studio.
We move on to the next room. ABBA on tour in Australia behind the stage where their dressing rooms are caravans and boy are they small. I did ask about this and the flooring as there appeared to be some confusion in some people’s faces. Neil gave a great answer and confused faces turned to ‘now I understand’. Maybe some had not experienced the early days of Glastonbury either. Live tour film footage from ABBA The Movie played in the back ground with interspersed interviews (similar footage present in ABBA World and ABBA The Museum) whilst the rain emptied down. The floor was a mixture of grass, dried mum, gravel stones and wooden slats all under a covered back stage area. The one caravan set out with an old Kitchen unit, iron make up, bottles and a gold cape on display behind glass. There was seating outside with coffee cups and bottles, a suitcase and display material included photos, news clippings hand written note from Agnetha, signed postcard and a ‘Bullshit’ list for which the title alone made me laugh! What ABBA got provided with on tour in 1977 bands and artists would throw a tantrum and not accept this on their riders. It was all pretty basic stuff and not the rock and roll you would expect. I rather liked this room. It gave insight to ABBA back in the day.

Now this is the room I don’t get. The Nightclub Toilet disco. Walls full of graffiti, old posters of bands and leaflets stuck to the wall and grotty toilets. There was also a little bit of public toilets smell in the air. It was also a room I didn’t pay much attention to apart form the ABBA display material. It’s connection was to do with night clubs and disco and you before you enter the room, you as visitors are queuing for the toilets! The ABBA display material is in the cubicle and sinks and mirror wall. There are a signed concert ticket and ‘79 tour programme. Other concert tickets for Wembley and Japan as well as premiere tickets and passes for concerts and ABBA The Movie. There is a letter from the Police about Piccadilly Circus regarding ABBA’s request to film the promo video of ‘Super Trouper’. The big display is the tour suitcase that ABBA’s Doctor used, Benny’s boots from the 77 tour and one of the 1979 tour capes from the ABBA concerts.

Maybe in place of this room there could have been an ABBA fan’s typical bedroom with posters on the wall, memorabilia around, record player, vinyl and seventies fashion to keep in with the ABBA memories and seventies memories. Far more relative. Sorry but the Nightclub Toilet Disco just doesn’t work for me and my reasons are constructive not dismissive.

We move onto the room reminiscent of ABBA’s video ‘’One of us’’. It is known as the Melancholy Room and is a front room of unpacked boxes. You have Frida’s green dress from ‘When All Is Said and Done’ video behind glass. There is a poster of ABBA The Visitors with an earlier poster of ABBA in their career and how different it was from beginning to their final studio album. There is archive material including photos of ABBA at their party for The Singles The First Ten Years. A press release about Frida moving to London, the latest ABBA album release and fan letter display. You also ending up watching ABBA's last interview with Noel Edmonds in 1982 on the TV. In a way you feel that hint of sadness.

The final room is a luxurious plane flight known as The Legacy. Luxury seating which we all took the opportunity to sit on!! Luke and I sat in front of the amazing replica puppets that were used in the Last Video. Those puppets do look amazing as the last time I saw them was under spotlights and artificial lighting. There is also a jumpsuit costume and boots worn by Donna in ‘Mamma Mia!’ and the kimono outfits we all know and love. There is also the Japanese Gold cassette award for the single ‘Super Trouper’. As you are seated the plane takes off and you get that take off sensation and then you view clips of ABBA videos in the window panes along with clips from films ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ ‘The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Dessert’ and a tribute by ‘French and Saunders’ with C’est La vie. It is here the plane descends and lands (no turbulence by the way) and the tour concludes with the story of ABBA’s longevity and continued legacy.

Overall, this is a tour. It lasts one hour and timing is important. You can ask your guide any questions during the tour and they are happy to answer. The Guides present the tour very professionally. Ok it may be scripted but there is room for ad lib. I can draw comparisons to tours I have been on for The Colston Hall and The Hippodrome in Bristol. The information is informative but not deep in depth that long term fans could have said ‘well I didn’t know that’. I’d also would have liked to have seen more material on display but having said that less is more and it is a taster. You can use your imagination and knowledge you already have as an ABBA fan. You are taken on a journey of ABBA and seventies Britain and I thoroughly enjoyed being a long term fan myself. I didn’t know what to expect but what is presented is well thought out. You don’t have the chance you go around the tour at your leisure as you could at ABBA World and ABBA The Museum and it would be totally unfair to draw comparisons, ABBA: Super Troupers is a unique exhibition.

I'd give it 81/2 out of 10. But for fans like us the information provided we already know. For the fan who loves ABBA's music it would be a good learning curve to learn more about the band and a little of Britain's history at the time.

It's also good to note that British Sign Language , Autism and Tourette's Friendly, and Dementia Friendly tours are available and you can find information here: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/…/126442-abba-super-troup…

Footnote: You asked, I tell. The merchandise shop for ABBA: Super Troupers is small. There is a selection of ABBA Memorabilia you can buy that is also available at ABBA The Museum apart from the The Exhibition bags and poster. There are books, keyrings, postcards, posters, mugs, ABBA Album Christmas baubles, hats, t-shirts and bags.

Abba: Super Troupers is at the Southbank Centre, London, 14 December-29 April. Go to web site: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/…/123377-abba-super-troup… Tickets are £15 - £25.





ABBA Super Troupers The Exhibition - Photos & Video & Articles - Updated 15th December



Well it's all very exciting and the media is coming in fast now.

Keep checking back as I will continue to add updates here.

You can also follow updates and more on Facebook at ABBA Info here:

https://www.facebook.com/ABBA-Info-518817871463920/

Bjorn Ulvaeus gave ITV a tour of the Brighton hotel bedrooms the band slept in following their stunning Eurovision win in 1974. It's part of a new immersive exhibition at London's Southbank Centre.



ITV Video


Abba memorabilia fills the rooms, which are connected by secret doors and magical wardrobes


Bjorn Ulvaeus, former band member of the group ABBA, poses for photographers in a recreation of the Polar recording studio in Sweden, where the group recorded many of their notable albums including Super Trouper.


Article from The Guardian:

Abba's Björn Ulvaeus: I had no idea 1970s Britain was so gloomy 

Band member speaks at preview of London exhibition that lovingly recreates scenes from era of band’s sensational success



There were endless strikes, power cuts, three-day weeks, TV programmes that finished at 10.30pm and Noel Edmonds. “You get very close to the reality of Britain in the 70s,” said Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus. “I had no idea it was so gloomy.”
Ulvaeus was speaking at the first preview of a new immersive Abba show at the Southbank Centre, which aims to tell the sensational success story of the band, as well as put it in the social and political context of 1970s Britain.
Groups of no more than 16 will be taken through nine rooms recreating important moments from the band’s history. Narrated by Jarvis Cocker, the show contains more than 120 archive objects as well as, of course, loads of music.






“It is the opposite of all those huge technically advanced virtual reality exhibitions that most of those pop groups have,” said Ulvaeus. “This is much more intimate, it’s warm, it’s full of a sense of humour.”
Abba burst on to the scene when they won the Eurovision song contest in Brighton in 1974 with Waterloo, beating Olivia Newton John’s UK entry. “The Abba”, as the TV commentator called them, were a much needed light in dark, difficult times.
Ulvaeus said the exhibition, a collaboration with the Abba Museum in Stockholm, made him realise how “impossibly gloomy” Britain was. “We were here for one or two days, now and then, so we didn’t quite know about this.”
It was particularly interesting to see news footage of the debate around whether to go into Europe, he said. “It was striking … how the Brits were hesitant about Europe back then, in the very same way as they are now, which is really sad I think.

The Napoleon Suite at Brighton Hotel


“It was spooky. It’s the same thing again for some reason, trying to stay away from Europe. It’s like losing, not losing a friend because you’re still there, but somehow you don’t want to be in the team and I think that’s sad.”

For some visitors the London exhibition will be nostalgic. There is a recreation of a chilly 70s front room with depressing news reports on the telly, candles for when the lights go out, a copy of Look-In, and a Peters and Lee record that someone hasn’t put back in its sleeve.
An unnecessarily rancid nightclub toilet is lovingly reproduced with puerile graffiti on the cubicle walls, cigarette ends, unspooled toilet roll and vomit stains.
The show’s producer, Paul Denton, said the nightclub was there because it was where so many people enjoyed the music. “Abba only toured for three months in 10 years, which is unheard of for a band today.”

Bjorn Ulvaeus, former band member of the group ABBA, poses for photographers in a recreation of the Brighton hotel suite, where the group celebrated their 1974 Eurovision Song Contest victory


Other rooms in the show include the Brighton hotel suite – the Napoleon Suite – where Abba celebrated the Eurovision song contest win, a bottle of Cinzano on the dressing room table.
There is the Polar music recording studio where Abba made records from 1978 and where visitors can now demonstrate how brilliantly they too can sing Dancing Queen.
For diehard Abba fans, room eight may be particularly hard to bear: the split. Denton and his team have created a Swedish apartment full of half-unpacked boxes, just like the opening scene in Abba’s melancholic One of Us.

On the TV is the band’s last performance in the UK with a toe-curlingly awkward interview with Noel Edmonds on the Late Late Breakfast Show.

The Southbank Centre show is the finale of its year-long celebration of Nordic arts and culture. “It has been a fascinating journey,” said the artistic director, Jude Kelly. “It would have been impossible to celebrate Nordic culture without thinking about Abba.”
Ulvaeus said he never imagined Abba – who split up 35 years ago – would last like it has. “It is kind of weird, but you get used to it.”

He said he was exposed to his younger self in some form every day, which meant he seemed to him to be that “other guy, from way back then. But I’m proud of what he did, I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for him.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/dec/13/abba-bjorn-ulvaeus-1970s-britain-gloomy 

Visitors sit in a recreation of ABBA's private jet in the Exhibitions final room.

Visistors sit in a recreation of ABBA’s private jet in the exhibition’s final room

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/culture/music/abba-show-recreates-dingy-70s-britain-bjorn-ulvaeus-says-i-didnt-think-wed-last/
Visistors sit in a recreation of ABBA’s private jet in the exhibition’s final room

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/culture/music/abba-show-recreates-dingy-70s-britain-bjorn-ulvaeus-says-i-didnt-think-wed-last/







Article from Belfast Telegraph:

Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus: Performing together again would be too much hassle

An immersive Abba exhibition at London’s Southbank Centre takes visitors inside a dark and dreary British living room and a recording studio.

Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus said the pop sensations will never perform again because it would be “too enormous” – as he unveiled a show charting the rise of the band against the backdrop of “grim”, 1970s Britain.  

The immersive exhibition at London’s Southbank Centre takes visitors inside a dark and dreary British living room, a recreation of the Brighton hotel bedrooms the band slept following their stunning Eurovision win, a recording studio and an aeroplane cabin.
Ulvaeus, 72, told the Press Association that the exhibition made him realise how “impossibly gloomy” Britain was at the time, with a collapsing economy, a three-day working week, and strikes.

“We were here for one or two days, now and then, so we didn’t quite know about this,” he said.
He said the London venue’s exhibition on another Nordic export, the Moomins, was one of the reasons he said yes to the “intimate” Abba show, which is a world away from “those huge exhibitions pop stars usually have”.
Ulvaeus said that wandering through the show had rekindled old memories, but that there was no chance of the hit Swedish band reuniting.
“I walked through yesterday and some of the rooms really took me back. Especially the (recreation of a) Sydney arena backstage,” he said.

“It was a dark, rainy night when we did a show there. It took me back. I was so surprised, I didn’t think it would. I really felt, this is what it was like,” he said.
“The hotel room in Brighton was like the room (bandmate and then wife) Agnetha (Faltskog) and I must have had, the bed in which I woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning the day after (their Eurovision win), finally realising what had happened, because everything was chaos before.
“It happened overnight so it was, ‘today we’re famous and yesterday we weren’t.”
But Ulvaeus said that performing as a group again was “not going to happen”, adding: “I think we don’t feel the motivation.
“The four of us, with live concerts, no. The simple answer is because we don’t want to. Why don’t we want to? I guess because it would be such hassle, it would be enormous. And it would take such… you cannot imagine the tension and the attention from everyone.
“So it would be like robbing yourself of, perhaps, two or three years out of your life when I could be paddling on my surf ski in the archipelago of Stockholm instead. There’s a choice.”
The star said that visiting the exhibition and watching old news footage broadcast from a TV in the 1970s living room made him realise some things in Britain had not changed – particularly controversy over Europe.
“It was striking on that telly, they showed footage from 1973/74, how the Brits were hesitant about Europe back then, in the very same way as they are now, which is really sad I think.
“It was spooky. It’s the same thing again for some reason, trying to stay away from Europe.
“It’s like losing, not losing a friend because you’re still there, but somehow you don’t want to be in the team and I think that’s sad,” he said of Brexit.
One of the items on display is a report Ulvaeus received from his music teacher at the age of seven, giving him a B minus, which has been unearthed from the archives.

“I was forced to play the recorder. They tried to make me do that when I wanted to play ice hockey. I was not interested in whatever that teacher had to say,” he said.
“I was probably very unruly during the lessons.  I was only seven or eight. At 12 I was given my first guitar and then I think I got an A after that. It turned around pretty quickly!”
Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre, said that the venue’s celebration of Nordic culture would have been “impossible without thinking about Abba”.
She added: “We have this idea that pop culture is throwaway culture. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of people who operate in the cultural space who think that pop culture has less value than what you might call classical culture.
“But if you think about what charts our lives…  we’re often looking at popular music.”

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/news/abbas-bjorn-ulvaeus-performing-together-again-would-be-too-much-hassle-36405466.html 

The Southbank Online Shop now has items available to purchase !

Check it out here:

http://shop.southbankcentre.co.uk/abba.html










 


Wednesday 13 December 2017

ABBA Super Troupers Exhibition Opens Tomorrow ! Bjorn Speaks At Press Conference



ABBA Super Troupers - The Exhibition

This awesome exhibition opens tomorrow (Thursday 14th December 2017) at Southbank Centre in London UK.



Bjorn Ulvaeus spoke at the Press Conference - hopefully I will be able to add photos and more details soon.

"It's intimate, warm and with a great sense of humour"








A review of the Exhibition from Bernadette McNulty can be read here:

https://inews.co.uk/culture/music/abba-magic-music-not-mementos/

The shop - should be online !!!



Flyer:




More information to come !!




Abba were together for only nine years, but their popularity seems undiminished three-and-a-half decades later. They are one of the few bands to hold out against reforming, creating a huge appetite around any kind of new take on their music. Abba Gold, the compilation of the band’s hits, released in 1992, a decade after they split, is one of the top-selling albums of all time. In 1999, the musical Mamma Mia! opened and has become one of the top 10 musicals playing in the West End and in Broadway. The film of the same title, which was released in 2008, is the highest grossing live action musical of all time. In 2010, the exhibition Abbaworld toured several countries with costumes and memorabilia from the band. In 2013, it found a permanent home in Stockholm at the Abba Museum. Within a year, 350,000 visitors had flocked through its doors not just to gawp at the band’s over-the-top costumes, but to try them on and sing on a stage alongside holograms of Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/culture/music/abba-magic-music-not-mementos/


Abba were together for only nine years, but their popularity seems undiminished three-and-a-half decades later. They are one of the few bands to hold out against reforming, creating a huge appetite around any kind of new take on their music. Abba Gold, the compilation of the band’s hits, released in 1992, a decade after they split, is one of the top-selling albums of all time. In 1999, the musical Mamma Mia! opened and has become one of the top 10 musicals playing in the West End and in Broadway. The film of the same title, which was released in 2008, is the highest grossing live action musical of all time. In 2010, the exhibition Abbaworld toured several countries with costumes and memorabilia from the band. In 2013, it found a permanent home in Stockholm at the Abba Museum. Within a year, 350,000 visitors had flocked through its doors not just to gawp at the band’s over-the-top costumes, but to try them on and sing on a stage alongside holograms of Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/culture/music/abba-magic-music-not-mementos/

Angelina Hakansson Plays Frida In New Movie !



Angelina Håkansson plays the ABBA member Anni-Frid Lyngstad in the movie "Ted - For Love" about Ted Gärdestad's life, which premieres on January 3.

"It is a great honor," says Solnabon.

At the Princess in Sundbyberg café we meet the actor Solnabon Angelina Håkansson. Earlier this year, she landed the role of Anni-Frid Lyngstad from ABBA in the movie "Ted - For Love" about Ted Gärdestad's life. A role to date will be her biggest.

"I proved for the role and sent pictures of myself where I would be as Anni-Frid as possible when she was between 28 and 32 years old," says Angelina while drinking her herbal tea.


For several years, she worked as a radio program director in London for the self-titled rock show "Angelina's Journey", but since she was a little, the scene has been her great passion. Four days after her audition, she received a text message stating that she had been given the role.

"It's a dream role for my career right now. I floated in the clouds when I was told, "said Angelina with a smile.

Even though she has similar faces with a young Anni-Frid, a big wig was required for the similarity of the ABBA star to be total.

"It may be a little hard to recognize me, but the wig is cool and helped me in my character work. And of course, it is a great honor to have an apron Anni-Frid shoes, ABBA is a signum for Sweden.

ABBA played an important role at the beginning of Ted Gärdestad's career. Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus produced Ted's first three albums, where Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agneta Fältskog were also background singers.


The film is directed by Hannes Holm, who last made the Oscar-nominated film "A man called Ove".
"I think it's great that there's a movie about Ted. I think it's a new generation that will discover his music. It is Swedish music history.

Just music has been a red thread in Angelina's career. When she was 20, she moved from Hudiksvall, where she grew up, to London, and started a career as a radio program leader for a rock music show. In total, it was nine years in the English capital before she settled in Solna, where she lived in the last three years.


In the radio show, she also interviewed world stars like Rammstein and Ozzy Osbourne, and she sees many similarities between her program leader role and acting actor.

Now, however, is the drama career that is valid for one hundred percent.

"The time in London was amazing and the city still feels like home, but after broadcasting my eight-year radio show, my passion for other roles began to speed up. I think the actor is in my DNA.

https://mitti.se/nyheter/angelina-abba-frida/

Thursday 7 December 2017

ABBA Super Troupers Exhibition - Southbank UK - Opening Soon !




ABBA Super Troupers Exhibition

Southbank Centre - London UK

14 December 2017 -  29 April 2018

Yep, that’s right. We’re getting set to go 'Head Over Heels' for all things ABBA as we say 'Thank You For the Music' in an exhibition that will have you clamouring to hand over your 'Money, Money, Money'. OK, we’ll stop the puns and focus instead on the details of what’s set to be a truly unique experience, pitching the Swedish supergroup against the news and social events of 1970s Britain.
With Entertainment Exhibitions International AB, and in association with ABBA The Museum in Stockholm we’re bringing the world of the chart-topping Swedish pop sensation to life in a brand new exhibition. The immersive experience will chart the group’s music, lyrics, creative process, and irrefutable influence as one of the most iconic pop bands of the modern age.

Benny Andersson went full glam-rock with his look early on, but he was never a fan of the platform shoe. On a 1979 tour of Europe and North America, he wanted low-heeled boots the same colour as his glistening white stage outfit, but none could be found. Abba’s enterprising crew bought him these cheap cowboy numbers and painted them. Abba were a thrifty band, using theatrical tricks rather than expensive details to make their costumes work – and no one could see the paint-marks left by the boots from the crowd. Off stage, Andersson ditched them for Fred Perry plimsolls.
* There seems to be an error here - we all know Benny wore these boots in 1977 !

ABBA: Super Troupers is a guided exhibition which goes beyond the surface of the group to transport you on a journey through previously unseen archive material including ABBA’s original costumes, handwritten notes and sketches, personal photographs, music and instruments. It will also feature album artwork, photography and film by notable collaborators such as film director Lasse Hallström.

One of the memorable costumes designed by Owe Sandström and worn by Frida Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog during the band’s Australian tour in 1977.

For the first time, objects from ABBA The Museum and private archives will be brought together in the UK, charting the success of Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, from their individual careers to that Eurovision Song Contest win and their subsequent international stardom.

ABBA: Super Troupers opens to the public on Thursday 14 December 2017 as part of our Wintertime festival, and the final month of Nordic Matters – a year-long programme of Nordic arts and culture here throughout 2017.

Come on a musical journey with Swedish pop sensation ABBA as they take over 1970s Britain in this one-of-a-kind exhibition.
Led by a personal tour guide and the voice of narrator Jarvis Cocker, we take you through nine immersive rooms exploring the music, lyrics and lives of one of the world’s most unforgettable bands.

Get close to never-before-seen items from the band’s archive including personal notes, memorabilia and iconic costumes. Chart their rise to fame and lasting legacy; from their early pop explosion onto the British music scene, to chart-topping international stardom.

Frida's hand-painted fox dress in green.

Designer Owe Sandström made all of Abba’s costumes apart from the Waterloo outfits, many of them purely for photoshoots and videos, as the group rarely toured. In their career, they only spent three months away from home; both couples had young children, and their image travelled through magazines and promo clips. Abba never allowed famous designers to dress them. Frida was a talented seamstress, and got fully involved in fashion decisions, as did Agnetha Fältskog. This was Agnetha’s shirt, in her favourite colour, its hare hand-painted by an artist in their crew.

Taking on 1970s Britain, in the midst of a financial crisis, a wave of strikes and a three-day working week, ABBA were a breath of fresh air, dominating the airwaves with their upbeat anthems channelling positivity and optimism.

ABBA: Super Troupers is presented by Southbank Centre in partnership with Entertainment Exhibitions International AB, in association with ABBA The Museum.

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Private jets were de rigueur in the money-drizzled 1970s music business; Elton John even had an organ on his. This Abba plane tells another story. An ordinary jet for a company that only ran internal flights in Australia at the time, it was branded by the company as a promotional tool. Inside was standard seating with everyone in ordinary rows, the band, as ever, not separated from their crew. This was the way Abba always toured, without pomp. Their riders were also remarkably slim, only asking for post-show drinks.

Before Abba, Frida Lyngstad was a jazz singer. Here, she is with the Gunnar Sandevärn Orchestra, next to her first husband Ragnar Fredriksson, with whom she had two children. In 1967, she formed the Anni-Frid Four, won Sweden’s New Faces, and got a contract with EMI. Two years later, while divorcing Fredriksson, she entered the Eurovision heats, and met future husband Benny Andersson. In 1973, Abba tried Eurovision again, and failed. A year later, they entered with Waterloo - and won.

As well as Frida, the other three members also had impressive earlier musical lives. Fältskog had a 1968 solo Swedish No 1, Jag Var Så Kär (I Was So in Love), and performed in musicals (this was taken after her first night as Mary Magdalene). Ulvaeus and Andersson were members of 60s groups the Hootenanny Singers and the Hep Stars. They released their first album together as a duo in 1970, but soon realised that their new girlfriends were better singers than they were.

This was taken by the boss of the UK Abba fan club, at a party in London to promote compilation album The Singles (all 23 are in the frame). Their manager, Stig Anderson, can be seen in the far left. The party also celebrated the band’s first 10 years together. Later that night, Ulvaeus and Andersson went to dinner with lyricist Tim Rice, to discuss the idea for a musical called Chess. A month later, Abba performed together for the last time, on the BBC’s Late Late Breakfast Show, saying they would split when making music ‘wasn’t fun any more’. Photograph: courtesy Lynne Chick, The Official British Abba Fan Club

Just some of the many thousands of items of fan mail received by the band over the course of their 10-year history. The group’s international fan club is still going strong today.

Iconic brown leather headphones as worn by Frida & Agnetha.
Photograph credit: Photo by Mikael Bodner. Courtesy of ABBA The Museum.

Ring Ring Gold disc, celebrating 100,000 singles sold.
Photograph credit: Photo by Mikael Bodner. Courtesy of ABBA The Museum.

Abba were successful all over the world, but a 1980 arena concert in Japan proved their most surprising to date. Used to screaming, dancing fans, they found the crowd at Tokyo’s Budokan merely sitting and clapping, which worried Andersson. Later, the group found out that Japanese crowds at the time were unbelievably polite, often not doing anything without the artists granting permission. The next time Abba played there, the audience were told to get up straight away and start dancing. Normal service resumed.

One of Abba’s only touring indulgences was a tour doctor, a friend of their Swedish promoter, Thomas Johansson. He was treated in the same generous way as the rest of the crew, such as the band not starting aftershow dinners until everyone, including stage-riggers and roadies, was ready. Unsurprisingly, Dr Olsson loved touring life, especially as he was an ordinary GP when not on the road. He also enjoyed collecting stickers and tour paraphernalia. After he died, his family came to the museum offering his suitcase in his memory.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2017/dec/02/abba-unseen-in-pictures-super-trouper-exhibition 

With thanks to ABBA Info for additional images.

https://www.facebook.com/ABBA-Info-518817871463920/