Back in February, a friend of mine, Mikael Wennerberg over at the Jämtland Härjedalens Musical Archives, spotted ads for pre-ABBA shows that were held in these parts in the Summer of 1973. I picked that up and blogged about it on Trinkelbonker at the time. Now we see a local newspaper, Östersunds-Posten, cover the story on May 12 with additional details. The newspaper has located the people that booked the show in Svenstavik (for 3,000 kronor, roughly 300 bucks) in late July 1973 and unearthed some photographs from the day by Iwan Wåhlén (whom had been hired to document the night for the promoters, Bergs IK). The group that would soon change its name to ABBA had apparently arrived in a white Mercedes bus, performed on the back of a truck for 45 minutes, and signed plenty of autographs on the way out (you can actually see Agnetha and Frida sign autographs from the bus in this article). A new edition of “Ring Ring” (the record that they toured with 50 years ago) will be available on Double LP on May 19.
(Credit goes to ÖP, writer Stefan Nolervik and the Svenstavik crew – additional thanks to Kalle and Seth)
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