I have just returned from Malmö in Sweden. The city was totally in ecstasy by it's yearly Malmö festival, and tonight (Friday) was the final day of a whole week.

I was invited by a Swedish friend to come over from Copenhagen and join the festival on its final day. The city was packed full of so many people, that just another single person couldn't have been squeezed in. On the square, a big stage was built and a lot of bands played there. 

Suddenly at 7.30 pm they announced A*Teens would perform live on stage. The square was packed to bursting point, and you could feel the breathing from the person behind you in your neck..........

And suddenly....from the loudspeakers the opening sounds of "Take A Chance On Me" were heard and on stage were A*Teens!

What a sound - what an arrangement - what a performance!

My hair stood on end - I got goose pimples all over and a big lump in my throat. I always do that when something really touches me. I had the exact same feeling when I saw ABBA Live in concert at Wembley in London in 1979. This song ("Take A Chance On Me") has never been one of my favourites, but boy, I hope this will be their next single release.

Then they performed the other songs from their forthcoming album 'The ABBA Generation'. I was so overwhelmed that I can't remember the order of the tracks they performed. But I liked every single song and its arrangement. My favourites were "Take A Chance On Me", "Our Last Summer" and "One Of Us".... and not to forget "Super Trouper".

The concert was a mixture of live and playback. There were real musicians, and they played together with a studio tape recording. The same for the vocals. You could here the live voices and the recorded voices. It worked really well.

To my amazement, both the boys played musical instruments! Amit played on some songs a keyboard, and Dhani played guitar for some songs. When the boys were not playing instruments, they joined the girls in the choreographed dance routines. And, also to mysurprise, they SANG.......and you could hear it! I always wondered what the boys role exactly is in A-Teens. Because generally you can only hear the girls voices. But now I know. The boys vocals were especially prominent during "Our last Summer" where Dhani sang a second voice to the verse  and it sounded SO nice - really great. I hope this version is on their album. If not, I'll sue the A*Teens ;-)

I can't believe I have seen them on stage, and I can't believe I now have heard all the songs from their forthcoming album. I can't wait until the release date of the album, because I now have the exact same feeling I once had, when a new ABBA album was to be released. You counted, not the minutes, but the seconds and spun round yourself until the album was out.

One bad/sad thing happened at the concert, unfortunately. When they performed the last song (the song before the encore), someone tried to sabotage the concert with throwing bananas, eggs and trash at the stage. Fortunately they must have been too far away from the stage because their projectiles didn't reach the stage, only the people in the first row. If the A*Teens members saw what happened, I don't know, but they were totally unaffected by it......fortunately.

The concert ended with "Mamma Mia" as the encore. And didn't the little kids in the audience go crazy and sang along as loud as they could. A new generation of ABBA fans was born right before my eyes..

The whole concert was recorded by television cameras, but unfortunately I don't know which station it was for.

From a new convert and a  BIG A*Teens fan, ABBAMAILer Jan Bach in Denmark