In honor of my 50th birthday we made a city trip to Stockholm, without me being aware of it. A real surprise. The choice for Stockholm was based on one thing and one thing alone, ABBA. I am a big fan of Abba and have always said that I wanted to go to the Abba museum anyway. So my wife and kids made my dream come true.
My love for Abba has a history. My mother used to be a big fan of Abba. For as long as I can remember she collected everything related to Abba. Both everything around Abba itself, but also everything that Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid and Agnetha have done solo. From the first bands to the solo activities after Abba. So basically I'm more or less forced to like Abba ;). My mother's passion for collecting went very far, she even had books with sheet music brought over from Sweden (she can't read music and didn't play an instrument :P ) . My mother took me into her collecting rage and love for Abba.
I remember well that she was once interviewed for a local newspaper, which was about hobbies that got out of hand. A friend of hers had informed the newspaper about her Abba hobby. I was then photographed with my mother with all kinds of Abba stuff displayed. Unfortunately I no longer have that photo. I think I was about 5 years old.
In 1979 Abba came to the Netherlands for a one-off concert, in Rotterdam Ahoy. Of course my mother wanted to go there, together with me :), there were no online options to order tickets back then, that was still 'old-school' at the post office. My father stood in line all night for 2 tickets for my mother and me. The funny thing is, no matter how young I was (I was 6 at the time) I can still remember it, crazy huh. It also remains a nice anecdote on birthdays etc. "I saw Abba in 1979" haha, in my circle of friends there are few if any who can say that.
In my Hive career I've dedicated a few posts to this great band before, in my "Music is magic, Music is emotion" series. And yet every time I am amazed at the impact of these musicians.
Now that you know a little bit about my history with Abba, it's time to give my account of our visit to the Abba Museum. We arrived in Stockholm on August 10, August 11 was my birthday. So my wife thought it would be fun to go to the museum on the 11th. And I thought so too :). They work with so-called time slots, which means that you have a ticket to visit the museum at a certain time. When we arrived there was a long queue and we thought it would take a very long time before you could enter, but that was not too bad (partly due to the time slots). There was a lady with a microphone who announced which time slot could enter the museum. We had the time slot of 12:00. The lady also indicated that there had been a water leak and that a small part of the museum was not accessible, I must honestly say that I did not notice that afterwards.
At the Entrance there was a life-size photo of Abba that you could stand in and put your head through one of the openings and be a face of Abba. Of course I couldn't stay behind, and let's face it...I could have passed for Benny, couldn't I?
On the roof were, in large, the boots with which (if I'm not mistaken) Björn once performed.
Upon entering, the first thing you saw was a very large sign with the name Abba in light bulbs, unfortunately the space was too small to get a good picture of this.
The exhibition started with an explanation of the creation of the Avatars they use with the performances in London for the Voyage concert. For those who don't know (what rock have you been under hahaha), Abba has built a concert hall in London where they give concerts with Avatars, so you see Abba but they're not there :) This in honor of the new Voyage album.
In the display case was one of the suits worn by Björn with which the recordings were made to convert the movements into an avatar image as naturally as possible. Bizar to see how technique can fool us ;)
A short movie from Youtube where you can see a bit of the process of making the Voyage Avatars.
The concert arena was built especially for the Abba show, in London. The 3D model showed what the Arena looks like. There were also video displays throughout the museum showing interviews and documentaries. Before the Voyage concerts an interview with Benny and Björn was shown. With the idea for the show, they had looked at existing concert halls, but nothing really sufficed, it was not available long enough, there was not enough space for the technology to be used, etc. So then they decided to build an Arena themselves .
There was also a video with a timelaps which showed the building of the Arena. From the video you could see the massiveness of the project. 
The museum is a mix of interactive and digital parts and memoribillia. You can see many costumes that they have worn over time. I recognized a lot of it :)
Of course the clothes they wore during the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974, which they glamorously won with the song "Waterloo" couldn't be missing.
There were several rooms where large screens gave a nice overview of Abba's enormous (but quite short) career. They are still one of the most successful bands of all time.
At the entrance of the museum you could download an app for the audio tour. The various parts then stated which audio fragment belonged to the item in question. You could choose from different languages, with the Swedish variant really spoken by Abba himself. Compared to the other languages, the anecdotes in Swedish were much more extensive. Anyway, I don't understand Swedish. (what a difficult language that is, normally you can still understand certain words but in Swedish, nothing at all)
The picture above shows the guitar Björn used at the songfestival.
Stikkan "Stig" Anderson
Stig Anderson was best known as Abba's manager. I dare say that he is partly responsible for how big Abba eventually became. Originally he was a composer and so he came into contact with Benny and Björn, they wrote songs for the record label Wat Stig Anderson (Polar Music). In the beginning he also co-wrote Abba's songs, such as Waterloo, Ring Ring. Really the songs from the early days (which were huge hits by the way).
In the museum a section was completely dedicated to Stig, which I thought was nice to see. Partly because of his influence in the success. For example, there was a replica of his office that was set up as if he could walk in at any moment.
Even his personal agenda and notes and song books have been preserved and were on display (behind glass). Eye for detail, in the big book a summary of many Abba numbers. Judging by a number of songs, this book was already from the later period of Abba (Super Trouper, the Winner takes it all).
As co-composer of the song Waterlook, Stig also received first prize for the song. His plaque was also on display. In the last period of his life he seems to have had a conflict with Agnetha and Benny, with that in mind I think it's very cool that his relatives (he died in 1997) apparently made his stuff available.
In addition to the space for Stig Anderson, the entire studio was recreated, including instruments. There were also two vocal booths in the studio, these spaces are used for recording the vocals. This was now made interactive, you could (if you wanted to) take a seat in the booth and sing along with a song of your choice. There was a man who really went wild and kept singing, we had to laugh a lot about that, all the more because behind him quite a lot of people were waiting to be allowed to sing a song.
Nowadays, mixing consoles are mostly digital (although some producers still swear by analog). This mixing console is of the superlative, what a device. I would be lost with all those buttons alone, let alone having to make a good mix with them.
Rutger Gunnarsson
Rutger Gunnarsson was Abba's bass player, unfortunately he passed away in 2015. If you dissect Abba's music and you listen purely to the bass, you will hear enormously complex and melodic bass lines. That man was brilliant and an amazing musician. In 'the studio' in the museum there was an interview with him in which the song 'The Day before you came' was discussed. The interviewer said that the bass line from the song is so characteristic of the song's power and that it is a brilliant bass line. "Rutgar debunked this by saying that this was one of the simplest bass lines he's ever played and written with Abba. I like that level-headedness. The man is brilliant and then say it's not that difficult at all.
In the following clip, during an interview, he plays the bass line from Dancing Queen, and to be honest, it gives me goosebumps. The soul and the feeling that is in his playing style, really amazing. It kind of reminds me of James Jamerson, THE bassist of Motown. There aren't many like that.
Source
What they also did very nicely was a room with a stage where you could sing along with ABBA on stage. The holograms were projected next to whoever was singing along. My kids wanted me to do that too, I kindly thanked :) .
The cover of the album Arrival is a classic, with the helicopter. Our attempt to recreate the cover didn't quite work out hahah. My son also liked it a lot....not... (and my face doesn't look any happy either, while I sure was )
Of the many items that were there, there were also photos where the members of Abba are in the photo with that item. Anni-frid's hat and shirt or the headphones Agnetha used. Funny was a guitar, the guitar in the picture was completely different from the guitar in the showcase.
There were also wax figures of the 4, they were indistinguishable from the real thing (I thought). My youngest said "Who's the blonde" she's really hot. hahaha.... I had a big laugh.
Another eye for detail, the costumes they have on here are from the late 1970s if I'm not mistaken. And at the end of the 70s, Agnetha already had short hair. But, I could be wrong too :)
I had to explain the next picture to my sons. They naturally grew up in the era of CDs and streaming services. They mainly know vinyl from the hip current. She did not know cassette tapes, of course they have heard about them, but not that there are artists who have actually released them.
The members of Abba donated part of their collection to the museum for display, overwhelming to see how many gold and platinum records they received. That is also not quite up to date anymore, these are now mainly awards for streams etc. The various plates state to whom they were awarded.
I was so busy reading all the labels of the gold and platinum records, trying to recall the moments of the release of those albums, that I completely forgot how long I stood there. This to the chagrin of my family hahaha, they were done with it. You can tell by their faces.
There was also a nice Dutch touch in the musuem. The official abba fan club has its origins in the Netherlands. It is the only fan club that is also recognized by the members of Abba. As can be read on the plaque, the fan club celebrated its 30th anniversary in the Abba museum and Benny gave a surprise performance. I would have loved to be there. Just became a member ;)
Of course there was also a fan shop. My boys gave me the T-shirt, very happy with it. A beautiful bag, the album "ABBA Gold" on vinyl. My youngest has been paying attention, he saw a tray with picks and picked out 10 :) So we are provisioned for now.
It has become a very long post, but to be honest, it couldn't have been any smaller as far as I'm concerned. What a great experience this was and I am very grateful to my wife and children for organizing this for me. And it just goes to show, Abba is still alive....
What's your favorite Abba song?
Take care and have a great day!
Peter