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The Best and Worst of ABBA In
2005
Looking back at 2005 as we ring in 2006, I am reminded of what an eventful year
it had been for me as an ABBA fan. Some moments were bright, and some not so,
but it’s definitely another year for the history books.
Two of the biggest highlights for me were the opportunity to participate in the
annual ABBF Fan Club’s ABBA Day in Roosendaal, in the Netherlands during April,
and the Mini ABBA Day ’05 (MAD05) in Sydney, Australia during September. While
neither event was significant to me for ABBA specific reasons, they were very
significant to me because of the wonderful opportunity to see several familiar
faces I’ve met over the years, and meet several more that I haven’t met
previously but have known for years through ABBAMAIL and a few others that fit
none of the above categories. Both these days are about spending time with other
ABBA fans and that’s where the true magic of ABBA lies for me these days.
Having attended both a fan club and ABBAMAIL event, I’m often asked which event
is better and to be perfectly honest, I don’t think either one is better than
the other as each seems to excel where the other lacks and thus creates a
balance where both events are worthwhile and something every ABBA fan should try
to make the effort to attend at least one of each. In the end both have you so
ABBA’d out by the end of the day that you need at least one month ABBA free
before you can tolerate listening to them again.
ABBA Day excels at providing opportunity to socialise without having to sit
through any more ABBA content than you want to expose yourself to. ABBA Day also
excels at drawing a large contingent of fans from mostly Europe, but also from
around the globe. And all this culminates in an ABBA Disco of all ABBA related
content for a fun chance to let your hair down and have some fun with like
minded folks. And all this fun is not without some drawbacks, the main complaint
I would have is that the venue selected for the event was certainly too small
and with such poor ventilation that parts of the event were just unbearable due
to the number of people present and all the heat that all those sweaty, obsessed
ABBA fans generate.
MAD’05 excels in the area of providing ABBA value for your money and drawing a
mostly Australian contingent of fans. Here the events are more structured and
attendance is mandatory. Screenings of videos and programs were all required
attend events giving it a more convention-esque feel. All of these events are
masterminded by ABBAMAIL’s own Graeme Read, who not only serves as quite the
charming moderator for the event but it’s his giving nature that tries to jam
more content than time truly allows for thus allowing the schedule to veer off
from the agenda and ultimately some content sacrifices need to be made for time.
Only real disappointments here was the lack of opportunities to have
unstructured socialisation with the other folks in attendance and the slight
overcrowding of the space for the event, but not the same degree as in the
Netherlands. There just was an over abundance of ABBA material that you can’t
leave one of these events feeling like you don’t know what’s going on in the
ABBA related world.
I can even add two ABBA cover bands to my list of highlights. This year I saw
both “ABBA Gold” based out of Canada and “adbacadabra” based out of Nevada. And
while both still clung to some cliché items that ABBA fans cringe over when
hearing tribute bands do them, both actually offered interesting and fun shows.
It certainly felt like a lot of attention to detail was put into the recreations
and that the intent of the shows to provide as close to an ABBA like experience
as possible as opposed to acts like Bjorn Again who make you feel like they’re
trying to milk the ABBA catalogue for as much money as they can scam off an
audience. I suppose the fact that both of these tribute acts have arisen in
North America speaks to the success of Mamma Mia! in creating interest in ABBA
on the North American continent because there was a time when there was no such
thing as a North American based ABBA tribute.
Another highlight was seeing the Polar solo albums of the girls of ABBA
receiving remastering and slight makeover to not only make them look good as a
set, but also make them look like worthy additions next to the last round of
ABBA remastered albums. Frida’s solo albums were released first covering her
1975 Ensam album and her two post ABBA English language albums. The clarity on
them illustrated considerable improvements over the last time the albums were
made available on CD. Agnetha’s Swedish language Christmas album with her
daughter Linda and her two post ABBA English solo albums for Polar were
reissued. Admittedly I paid less attention to the Agnetha re-issues because the
Christmas album is mostly appalling because of the children singing on it and
the albums seemed to have a couple decent songs but otherwise as a whole were
pretty dire. I’m still waiting for Warner Bros. to dust off Agnetha’s “I Stand
Alone” album for remastered treatment. That album is one of my favorites from
Agnetha’s solo efforts.
ABBA The Movie seeing the light of day in remastered form is certainly one of
the bigger highlights of the year. As I mentioned in last month’s column, I also
used it as the source of my first ever transfer of video to my iPod. Amazingly
the entire movie and seven thousand audio songs can co-exist on the iPod and
still have quite a bit of room left for more. One of the disappointing factors
here is that ABBA The Movie still has yet to be released in the United States,
necessitating the need to import a copy from Canada in order to enjoy it before
the end of the year. A deluxe edition with a bonus disc was also released and I
ended up having to order that one from Europe but was quite disappointed with it
to see when it had arrived that the clear trays were cracked pretty badly. I
never did get around to seeing the content of the bonus disc. Maybe I’ll have to
transfer that disc too to the iPod just so I can have it available to watch at
all times.
Additionally I also made two trips specifically to meet up with individual
ABBAMAIL list members, one trip to Las Vegas and the other to Orlando. I also
met up with a couple of ABBAMAILers during their brief stays here in San Diego.
This is what the ABBA fan community is all about, the ability to travel to just
about anywhere on the globe and have a friendly face to see and talk to. ABBA
might just be the common connection that initiates the conversation, but it’s
the chance to connect on many levels of friendship that has allowed me to
continue my ABBA fandom long past the point where I would have moved on to
something else if I was enjoying my fandom isolated from other fans.
And getting to the lowlights of 2005, of which I really don’t have many. The
biggest disappointment of the year was to find out how badly the Las Vegas
production of Mamma Mia! has gone downhill from days of it’s original cast. With
most of this cast being new, the show has certainly lost quite a bit of its
appeal. It almost felt more like a high school production than something worthy
of the kind of money they’re asking to get for the tickets. Rumor has it that
the Las Vegas production will be closing at the end of February 2006, which is a
shame because it’s a good show for Vegas, but with the caliber of the cast I saw
this year, I can certainly see why it might be better to put this production out
of its misery. But if the show does continue on, I hope the powers that be put
in some real effort to get a better cast to put some new life into the show.
And finally the last lowlight of the year was the ABBA The Complete Recording
Sessions box set. It’s not so much that the box is disappointing just that I
failed to feel remotely excited about it. I bought it, and have looked at it,
but I can’t be bothered to listen to any of it or even watch any of the included
DVDs. I already have the majority of the songs on my iPod and I don’t feel like
going through and making new copies of the songs just because newly done
remasters were made for the set, and I just don’t want to take the time to
transfer the other songs. I guess the set just caught me at a point when I’m
really not in the mood to hear ABBA. The best I can offer is that it looks
pretty on the shelf, next to the unopened Japanese album set I bought last year.
In any case, that’s a brief look at my highlights and lowlights in the ABBA
world for 2005. I’m looking forward to 2006 which will include the new Frida box
set with DVD (I ordered it ages ago, but I’m still waiting for it to be shipped)
and see ABBA’s very own Benny Andersson perform live in concert with his new
little orchestra of folk music players. I’m just not looking forward to being in
Minnesota in March, this Canadian, has been gone from Canada so long, he doesn’t
like doing winter if he can help it.
Ryan |
