Sydney was chosen as the only city in Australia to host an official Dancing Queen 50th celebration! So lucky!! Only seven countries around the world had this special honour: Sweden, Germany, Mexico, United Kingdom, Poland, The Netherlands and Australia.
Interstate guests flew in: Brenda and Brenton from Adelaide and Allison and Angel from Canberra!
Our free gift was an ABBA disco at Harbord Bombies hotel (350 fans) with dancers, a DJ, a stunning mirrorball backdrop and a lovely pink Dancing Queen sash (reusable, with a velcro attachment so you could rip it off, Waterloo skirt-style!)
We got drinks and a pizza to share at Bombies and Dancing Queen was played at least three times through the evening. We got there when doors opened at 6pm and the crowd filled out when the DJ started at 7.30pm. It seemed to finish early around 10pm with Thank You For The Music and Angeleyes.
For a while, we wondered if the DJ only had a copy of ABBA Gold to play, so it felt like being stuck on a cruise ship with only one album onboard. However, we were thrilled to hear When I Kissed the Teacher and Summer Night City, indicating they also had More ABBA Gold! ABBA guru Ian Cole pointed out Bang A Boomerang was the only exception (maybe due to Aussie reference).
It also meant “Rock Me” was nowhere to be found for mega-Bjorn fan Brenda, who requested it. No rockin and reeling for you!
There were a couple of amazing dancers wearing mirror ball helmets and sparkly costumes and I was wondering why they were so petite — then realised I’d got so used to seeing tall drag queens dancing in costumes!
Damo hadn’t turned up and texted from an ultra-hip-cool birthday/pyjama party. When I replied the music was only from ABBA Oro and ABBA Mas Oro, he wrote: “What?!! No chance of ever hearing You Owe Me One?!!” Nope, we’re missing all the fun! Meanwhile, the PJ party was so uber-cool, it was being live-streamed via Twitch.tv from the living room!
Chit chat around the ABBA fan tables buzzed about Remko van Drongelen’s new project, a Beyond Agnetha book, with a deep dive into her earlier career! More details to come! We all have his incredible Beyond Frida book, a must-have for every fan. Also, I recently bought a (faded box) ABBA Monopoly set from ABBA fan Stuart and am very happy. (I already have a customised ABBA monopoly version with my homemade ideas, but not an Official version.)
There was a discussion re: Yol said Dancing Queen was a CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation) song (has the correct beat for doing chest compressions). I’d recently completed a CPR course and had been told it was Take A Chance on Me! “The person would DIE if you were doing the slower compressions to Dancing Queen,” I said. Wrong! Google showed it came it at the slower end of 100 beats per minute, but patient would still SURVIVE!! So Dancing Queens live on!
With our first aid knowledge refreshed, we confidently hit the dancefloor with all our authentic chorry moves, which totally went heels over heads of the many youngsters. They didn’t know the words, but I suspect it’s because there are too many to learn for someone who didn’t grow up with incremental single and album releases over time. Maybe big-time young fans don’t know the words?
I felt like a freak for knowing the words!! I danced with some of the youngsters and was asked where I’d got my ABBA Tshirt from. $70 from ABBA Voyage London! They were aghast at the price!
Shook my hair and took a casual stroll up to the bar where a guy said he’d watched my Hallet’s Beach video and liked it. Thank you!
Most of the Sydney fans were there: Louise, David, Judy, Donna (transport expert), Christian, Manly Mark, James, David, Maureen and ABBA expert Ian Cole!
The previous night we’d (me, Louise, David and TC) been to an ABBA night at the new GLBTIQA+ club, Tribe, which started with a screening of Mamma Mia the movie, and had three levels of different ABBA song styles and remixes and drag acts and the DJ sang along and knew all the words! The only drawback was the disco started at 10pm, which was a little on the late side! (the 1980s/90s ABBA discos started at 8pm!) We’d watched the movie then left, as we’d wanted to save our big energy for the official Universal launch the next night. Louise and TC had stayed on to boogie and reported back that it was a very successful evening and they’d love to go again. Which we will!
It seems the GLBTIQA+ clubs still, 50 years later, know best how to please the “hard core” fans!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(An earlier drama on the evening was when a bus driver dropped me off at the wrong venue, Harbord Diggers, so I was waiting all alone from 4.45pm until 6pm, texting everyone and being unable to find them in the huge multi-level eateries! This stuffed up my idea of a group shot at the nearby beach, and at 6pm when I insisted at the front desk on knowing where the ABBA disco was, the Concierge said there wasn’t one being held there! She said there were no taxis or buses to get to Bombies, so I asked for a way to get home. She looked me up and down in my ABBA t-shirt and cap and like a fairy godmother said: “You WILL go to the ABBA night!” She walked off to ring their shuttle bus driver and 10 minutes later he took me directly to Bombies — even though he’d been instructed to park around the corner, as they’re not permitted to drive people to a rival hotel! So I arrived out the front in a mini-bus with “Harbord Diggers” in big letters on the side! Luckily it was still early enough to enjoy all the fun! A huge THANK YOU to Diggers’ Concierge and Shuttle Bus Driver!!)
Cotton Ward 