As some of you know I am a huge ABBA fan, mostly passed on by my mother when I was little :). Today I still find the music amazing and timeless, and from the musical side, it is just great, complex arrangements. Last year my wife and children gave me a surprise trip to Stockholm. Of course we went to the ABBA museum, that was the goal. And it was amazing. I also wrote a post about it back then.
Eventually I also became a member of the fan club, not so much that I have a lot of interest in fan clubs but more for the nostalgia. The official ABBA fan club is in the Netherlands and that is the only official ABBA member recognized fan club. That is pretty cool.
A week and a half ago I got an invitation via the fan club to participate in a Zoom Meeting. The meeting would be broadcasted from the ABBA Museum and would also include a tour. I didn't know what to expect but I signed up anyway, yesterday I got a notification from my agenda that the meeting started at eight o'clock, I almost forgot :).
When the meeting started, the number of visitors quickly increased. At one point, there were more than 800 viewers in the meeting and from all over the world. Most of them came from Europe. The ladies who hosted the meeting were Dutch, you could hear that a bit from the English accent, but it was wonderfully organized.
(I see I have to clean my Laptop screen)
They started with a Quiz, you could scan a QR code with your phone and participate in the Quiz. Of course, they were all questions about ABBA or the museum. I have to admit, the questions were difficult and I did not win any prizes :)
After that we went (virtual) to the museum.
First the ladies spoke with hanna kimblad einarsson, she is the head of the exhibitions and she told us about the ABBA museum, but also about other exhibitions (like Avicii) and wished us a nice evening.
After Hanna's welcome speech, Helena Mattson took us into the world of the ABBA museum. What an enthusiastic lady she was, she could really speak very vividly and told us about the backgrounds of the different settings in the museum. The museum is designed in such a way that you are taken from the beginning to the end of ABBA.
The museum also has a replica of the Polar studio, where many instruments that were used for recording ABBA albums are displayed. When we were in the museum, I was particularly curious about the history of the bass guitars of Rutger Gunnarsson, the bassist of ABBA and (for me) one of the creators of the characteristic ABBA sound.
In the studio (we are back at the webinar) a man was waiting, it was none other than Lennart Östlund. He was the sound engineer for ABBA in the Polar studio, how cool is it to hear stories from someone who really worked with ABBA. The session also included a Q&A where you could ask questions. Of course, I only had one question (which was also asked to Lennart). My question was "Was it already clear in the studio that Rutger Gunnarson was of great value to the ABBA sound?"..... His answer was short but very powerful "Absolutely, Rutger was of great value to the ABBA sound".... and that is exactly how I feel about it. Someone also asked what his best memory of working with ABBA was. He was very honest about this, he said "I don't have a good memory of that time itself, it was very hard work. The memory and the realization of what we achieved together came later, I worked with the biggest band in the world".... Beautiful and sincere.
After the Polar studio, there was talk about the ABBA costumes and the world tours. There was live communication with Ingmarie Halling, who was responsible for the wardrobes during the ABBA tours. She told nice anecdotes from the tours. For example, she said that ladies often had to go to the toilet just before a performance. Frida did the same, only the toilet was far from the dressing rooms (it was during a performance in Scotland) so Frida thought it would be handy to pee in the sink. Only the sink broke off the wall and sprayed the entire dressing room with water from the burst water pipe. I can see it happening :).
Ingmarie had to work hard to get the costumes clean and fresh again for each performance. That's how we later understood that there really was only 1 copy of each costume and that they were all handmade.
Lastly, there was the tour of the costumes, I remember it from our visit. There were many well-known and lesser-known costumes on display. Very cool to see. There was a striking man between the display cases, it turned out to be none other than Owe Sandström. Owe was the designer of all ABBA costumes for the various albums and world tours. That man made history with his costumes that were so typical of ABBA.
He also told anecdotes about his time with ABBA, for example he told about the costumes for the song "Ring Ring", which according to him was one of the most daring costumes he ever made. If you look through the history of ABBA and the variety of costumes, that is also typical of ABBA, everyone knows the costumes and can place them with the different songs. Isn't that sublime?
I really feel like we witnessed a special online meeting, people who really worked with ABBA took us on the ABBA journey. In the museum where we visited last year......I thought it was really special....
I'm going to listen to some ABBA music again this weekend, I'm in the mood :)
Have a nice weekend everyone!!
Peter