Hitkrant, March 1982: ABBA: maybe on tour yet again

After ABBA’s major world tour in 1979, the group announced that it might well have been the last one. The expenses became too high and the strains too much. But a true artist apparently can’t do without his audience, because according to Björn and Benny, there’s now a fair chance that ABBA will be on stage again this year.

“It doesn’t seem to end,” is what Benny told recently, referring to the continuing successes. ABBA’s new album ‘The Visitors’ is breaking all records again. The single ‘One Of Us’ was huge once again, but the second single from that album, ‘Head Over Heels’, reached the top of the charts in our country within three weeks. That’s why Benny sighed: “We have to do something in return for our fans.”

After the previous tour, the group was tired. “We had a lot of personal problems,” Benny says. “We needed some time to get back to ourselves again. That time is hardly available, because you’re always busy with the new album that has to be better yet again. One by one, our marriages ended. That hurt.” But it didn’t take ABBA that much time to overcome their personal problems. Björn and Benny both remarried, Frida has a boyfriend and Agnetha left quietly for Mallorca, where she stayed undisturbed for one month.

The consequence was that the group returned with a new look and very enthusiastically with the new album. Agnetha says: “I needed that month as a rest period. The tabloids are hunting me constantly to find out who’s the new man in my life. But I want peace and quiet. All four of us have changed now, and not only outwardly. We’ve become real friends again.” Agnetha admits that she’s not too fond of Frida’s new look; Björn’s full beard is more to her liking.
Benny has a totally new hobby: he’s very much into race-horses. Two three-year-old horses, named ‘Secret Army’ and ‘Hurtwood Lass’ are Benny’s. At the end of last year, the ABBA-star flew to England on several occasions to see his horses. He is planning to put them in a race very soon.

Frida has a new hobby as well: the past few months she hosted a popular show on Swedish television four times. She explains: “It was so much fun to do. I announced artists and sang along with others or did the backing vocals.” Frida will now rapidly start working on her solo-album that will be recorded in Stockholm. Producer Phil Collins has gone through everything with Frida already and the singer wants to share that the album will be very different from her achievements with ABBA.

So, ABBA is full of courage again. The group is even considering to go on tour again. “We won’t confirm anything yet, but we’re seriously considering it,” Benny says. Whether ABBA will come to Holland as well? They probably will!