Wembley2014ABBA Live at Wembley Arena

Live album released September 2014, featuring the recording of November 10, 1979.

  1. Gammal fäbodpsalm
  2. Voulez-Vous
  3. If It Wasn’t For The Nights
  4. As Good As New
  5. Knowing Me, Knowing You
  6. Rock Me
  7. Chiquitita
  8. Money, Money, Money
  9. I Have A Dream
  10. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
  11. SOS
  12. Fernando
  13. The Name Of The Game
  14. Eagle
  15. Thank You For The Music
  16. Why Did It Have To Be Me
  17. Intermezzo No 1
  18. I’m Still Alive
  19. Summer Night City
  20. Take A Chance On Me
  21. Does Your Mother Know
  22. Hole In Your Soul
  23. The Way Old Friends Do
  24. Dancing Queen
  25. Waterloo

So a complete concert without Not Bad At All which is why Frida’s introduction of the band seems very short and a bit misplaced. She actually introduced the band and the following song featuring Tomas Ledin and Mats Ronander. Some video footage of this and Agnetha & Frida on backing vocals can be found in the Japan tour feature included on the bonus disc of ABBA in Japan. Whether the track was excluded because of copyrights or similiar reasons or just because it might not have fit the vinyl edition is not known – the vinyl edition was released on three LPs instead of four as the first information in spring said.

The younger Andersson reveals the show was picked over others recorded  in Australia and Japan because of
the superior audio quality and more importantly, it featured the track I’m Still Alive, performed by  Fältskog and co-written with Ulvaeus, which has never been officially released till now.
ABBA Live at Wembley Arena's release is also set to right everything that was wrong about ABBA Live, which Andersson reveals has been deleted by his father from the band’s back catalogue. “They cheated on that one with a lot of overdubs,” he explains. To keep the new record as authentic as possible, modern editing technology was used sparingly and almost none was required except to fix a tom-tom that was recorded on a broken microphone and sounded distorted whenever it was hit. “We replaced that with one from another show which sounded exactly the same; it was the only thing we were forced to do,”
The Business Times, January 9, 2015

Anyway, this album finally deserves to be called a live album. ABBA appear very raw here, without overdubs and such, but also playful and energetic. The impession sometimes is very different to the studio material, but it is a treat for those loving raw live recordings. So if you want perfectness, stick with the studio albums. If you are a fan of live atmosphere and some improvisation, this album is for you.

If you come across bad reviews, always make sure to verify what the people write about as the worst reviews seem to refer to the vinyl edition only!

Links

  • The Business TimesRare ABBA album fetes 40 years of chart-toppers, about Ludvig Andersson’s work on the album

ABBA The Concerts
ABBA live 1970-1982

TheConcerts