ABBA Mania
Stockholm - 26th June
The day has finally arrived where we got to see the legend that is the Swedish pop group ABBA with a visit to the ABBA museum on the island of Djurgarden, Stockholm. At the peak of their career ABBA was Sweden’s second largest export, Volvo being the biggest. ABBA brought in so much money to the Swedish economy and the museum is still raking it in for them today; NZ$95 for one senior and one adult, plus of course the obligatory souvenir.
Although they won Eurovision in 1974 it took six years for ABBA to reach critical acclaim in their home country, and that was done with the release of ‘Super Trouper’ in 1980. Many Swedes felt that the members were greedy gold diggers; they didn’t like the English pop music and thought their clothes were provocative. The pussycat clothes above were ABBA’s answer to taming it down for Sweden, but most of the time they used to tear off the long skirts so they would be wearing just a short tunic type dress.
ABBA sold over 400 million records; only one band has sold more and that was the Beatles. It is ironic that in 1966 (great year that) when Bjorn and Benny met at a folk park with their then respective bands, they ended up discussing their shared interests and playing Beatles songs together in the park. The car above is the one Benny Andersson’s band the ‘The Hep Stars’ went to gigs in, great taste, unlike Bjorn’s band that drove a Swedish Volvo.
The museum has numerous interactive opportunities where you can take quizzes, mix music, conduct an orchestra, sing in a closed booth, dance in a closed booth or sing and dance on stage in front of others with holograms of ABBA members. We did all the activities except the singing and dancing – the photo above included some random lady.
Today’s ABBA tribute is ‘Super Trouper’ (1980) for the song that helped end 6 years of scepticism in Sweden. Quite a few of the winning records above are from Australia, they steal all NZs artists, and I’m surprised they haven’t claimed ABBA.
Tonight the super trouper lights are gonna find me
Shining like the sun (super trouper)
Smiling, having fun (super trouper)
Feeling like a number one
Today wasn’t all about ABBA; we also did a couple of geocaches, visited a church and had lunch at a historic food hall. As we walked from the Djurgarden island to Ostermalm we passed the wharf area that was offering free visits on some old ships. The ship in the above photo is the 1903 lightship Finngrundet, its purpose was to act as a lighthouse at sea, providing an orientation point and warning of any dangerous underwater obstacles.
More photos of the area above before we went to the Ostermalm Saluhall (food hall) for lunch. The Hall sells fresh food like raw fish and produce, premade meals, lunch snacks and has seated dining areas. The Saluhall was established in 1888 and was totally renovated in keeping with its original architecture and style over four years before being completed in 2020.
The photos above are of the 18th century octagonal Hedvig Eleonora church where we ate our lunch from the food hall in the grounds. Lunch was a well filled wrap; the prices were on a par with NZ; as we also managed to get somebody a seniors discount at ABBA and the train, we had financially a good day out.
We took the rapid transit train home, it really was rapid, the train driver was very heavy on the accelerator and the brake, you needed to be sitting down and holding on. Stockholm’s metro has been described as the world’s longest art gallery; I’m not sure about the drawings at the Ostermalm station.