ABBA 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 Times – Rare ABBA album fetes 40 years of chart-toppers, about Ludvig Andersson’s work on the album

ABBA The Concerts
ABBA live 1970-1982