ABBA - Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad - hadn’t toured for some two-and-a-half years by the time they embarked on a long list of dates in North America, Europe and Asia, in September 1979.
There was no disputing their status, however, as the biggest-selling group in the history of recorded music, as their label described them. Tickets for all the concerts were at a premium, including the show at the Glasgow Apollo on November 13 (pictured).
The concert was of special interest to a group of pupils from the city’s Hillhead High School. Abba had decided that, this being the International Year of the Child, they would like to have children sing with them on stage. Thus did 25 Hillhead pupils rehearse for four weeks, at lunchtimes and after school, in order to sing a song with the Swedish supergroup.
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Herald DiaryThe concert itself, in front of 3,500 fans, got off to a slow start because of problems with the acoustic, but once the problems had been ironed out, the band really hit their stride.
Backed by a nine-piece band, they ran through all of their hits and introduced a sprinkling of newer songs. The song Super Trouper, with its lines, ‘I was sick and tired of everything/When I called you last night from Glasgow’, had, however, yet to be recorded; it would be the title track of their forthcoming album.
The Evening Times’s pop writer observed that one of the loudest cheers of the evening was when Frida wore a Scotland football top. Another highlight the Hillhead pupils joined the group on stage to sing I Have a Dream.
“It was three years since Abba’s last show,” he wrote, “but the group seem to have lost none of their appeal.”
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