Held a Eurovision party at my place. We’ve all been die-hard Eurovision watchers since the 1990s, when it was first shown in Australia. Preparation: read the Des Mangan “This Is Sweden Calling” book and Terry Wogan’s “Is It Me?” and watched the two semi-finals.
Continue reading Eurovision party 2014
My entry for Agnetha dancing video competition, which had to include lots of dancing. The slow motion move in verse 1 is Agnetha’s dance move from Dancing Queen. My living room is small, so every time I hopped sideways left for the chorus, I slammed into a wall, ending up black and blue on one side. Well worth suffering for my art, though! 😉
Props: original Matchbox Agnetha doll from the 1970s and one of my ABBA scrapbooks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSmOXi9Jj_U
Went to D’s birthday party, his 50th. Lovely little dog, like Pudsey, and a beautiful home.
We enjoyed afternoon tea in his spectacular backyard, and later looked at his ABBA shrine (indoors). Ended up borrowing many goodies.
The menu was the same as the Ritz in London, where D had recently dined:
AN ABBAMAZING INTERACTIVE AND OVERACTIVE EXHIBITION
MORE than 30 years since ABBA’s first live performance in Australia at the Sydney Showgrounds in Moore Park on that wet evening of 3 March 1977, ABBA fans can relive the hormonal, adolescent dramas of being desperate teenage ABBA fans who just wanted to go to a pop concert, any pop concert, but got sucked into a black hole-ish vortex from which they would emerge singing “Mamma Mia, here I go again.” And again and again.
Cotton Ward, curator of ABBAWhirl, said: “This is a unique opportunity to see original ABBA fan material. For more than 35 years, ABBA has been one of the top three selling artists in the world, having sold 375 million records worldwide, mostly to people I know.”
“No expense has been spared in staging ABBAWhirl in my flat — genuine ABBA scrapbooks from the era, and the ABBA dolls are sitting on top of the telly.”
ABBAWhirl examines the early days of sending letters and waiting breathlessly for the latest edition of the Swedish Pop Import, the official ABBA Fan Club’s buy and swap columns, and Record Collector ads. There is a blaring, wind-up alarm clock to remind you of the many early mornings of getting up for record fairs at town halls to be among the first to get to Parramatta or Kur-ring-gai, and endless scouring through secondhand shops for memorabilia. The lunchbox, dolls, socks and full set of bubblegum cards were the holy grails. The usual finds were a couple of singles, which you already had, and maybe an old edition of an ABBA Annual or a copy of TV Week or Spunky!
A rotary dial phone reminds you of all the times fans would ring each other up with news of the latest overseas bootlegs available at Red Eye Records, or the next performance of Bjorn Again at small venues, for $10 a ticket.
Continue reading Welcome to ABBAWhirl! (ABBAWorld parody)
An insider’s account of travelling to the premiere of ABBAWorld in Melbourne with a group of Australia’s most hardcore ABBA fans, who have shared their obsession for more than 30 years.
Link to the Sydney Morning Herald story.
Continue reading Hardcore Australian ABBA fans visit ABBAWorld
Cotton Ward 