Man vänjer sig.

Films 1-10
11. Stardust
12. Kunskapens pris – balladen om den vilsne vandraren



13. ABBA in concert (1980)

A very short documentary of the US tour in September 1979 leading into a concert film from one of the six sold-out concerts at Wembley Stadium in November the same year. Apparently it has been very heavily edited — there are nine songs (eleven including the bonus tracks), whereas the track list I have found on the web lists 26 songs, including three encores.



So what's it like, then? Well... It's ABBA in good musical shape, tight and confident and with a very skilled live band. Pity about the awful clothes.

 

The high points for me are "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" and "Summer Night City", the latter with a very long synthesizer intro played by Benny on a Yamaha GX-1 (a huge synthesizer, which sounds much like the later CS-80 (one of Vangelis' favourite synths and heavily used on the Blade Runner soundtrack), but even bigger and heavier). If there is a low point, it is "I Have A Dream"; half the track is shot at the rehearsals with the children's choir, and before the kids find the right key they sound really awful... I also laughed a bit at the confused American fan during the documentary section, a guy in his early twenties who claimed to have waited his entire life for this concert and worshipped ABBA for eight years (i.e. since before they released their first single).

If the original footage is still preserved somewhere, I would love to see a full-length restored version some day. This is really too short.

FYI, this is the track listing on the DVD:
1. Waterloo (short live clip from the US tour)
2. Eagle (short live clip from the US tour)
3. Take A Chance On Me (short live clip from the US tour)
4. Voulez-Vous
5. Chiquitita
6. I Have A Dream
7. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
8. Knowing Me, Knowing You
9. Summer Night City
10. Dancing Queen
11. Does Your Mother Know
12. Hole In Your Soul
BONUS TRACKS:
1. The Way Old Friends Do
2. I Have A Dream [same recording as in the main video, but without the shots from the rehearsals]
3. Thank You For The Music
4. Interview with director Urban Lasson
5. Interview with promoter and tour manager Thomas Johansson
6. Tour Souvenir Programme Picture Gallery
7. Mamma Mia! trailer

And this is the set list from Glasgow a few days after Wembley:

1. Gammal Fäbodspalm
2. Voulez-Vous
3. If It Wasn't For The Nights
4. As Good As New
5. Knowing Me Knowing you
6. Rock Me
7. Not Bad At All [by Tomas Ledin, who was touring with them as a backing singer]
8. Chiquitita
9. Money, Money, Money
10. I Have A Dream
11. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
12. S.O.S.
13. Fernando
14. The Name Of The Game
15. Eagle
16. Thank You For The Music
17. Why Did It Have To Be Me?
18. Intermezzo No 1
19. I'm Still Alive [never recorded in a studio version]
20. Take a Chance On Me
21. Summer Night City
22. Does Your Mother Know
23. Hole In your Soul
24. The Way Old Friends Do
25. Dancing Queen
26. Waterloo

Borrowed from the Stockholm city library.