Well I wrote about the pre-ABBA (Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida) gig that took place in Östersund (Jämtland County) back in July 1973 on this blog on February 19 and my friend Mikael Wennberg has found out more about this visit and sent me scans. It turns out that Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida did (at least) five concerts in these parts between July 15 and July 29 1973 so that is quite the revelation for me and quite interesting. Looks like they did gigs in Sveg (July 15), Hammarstrand (27), Viskan (28) followed by Östersund and Svenstavik (both on the 29th). The complete Swedish tour (as far as I can tell) took place between June 16 and September 9 and they did something like 80 concerts (some days more than one, as was the case on July 29). Apparently there was a bombscare at the Östersund venue (Jamtli) as the leader of the party Centerpartiet Thorbjörn Fälldin held a speech there in front of 4,000 people. Not sure of the details but my guess is that Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida had already left by then for the second booking that night in Svenstavik. Huge headlines in local media (see below). Östersund is listed on August 15 1973 as well on the ABBA-The Concerts 1970-1982 site, but this has yet to be confirmed. What is true is that they obviously worked hard this summer to capitalize on the “Ring Ring” single doing well in the charts, dragging the album with the same title with it. After the tour they changed the name to ABBA and the rest is history.
(Many thanks to Mikael Wennberg at Jämtland Härjedalens Musikaliska Arkiv for scans and support – the newspaper Östersunds-Posten is still around to this day)
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