Das Freizeit-Magazin, May 1978: That's how ABBA and The Rubettes became friends!

ABBA and The Rubettes have a lot of things in common: many hits, a lot of gold records and millions of fans. Especially in Germany. Still, they had never met each other personally. In France, both European top groups met each other for the first time.

It's funny: here we have two groups, who are with the same record company, who have both sold millions of hits already, who have the biggest fanbase here in Germany and who still hadn't met each other yet. Until now! We are talking about The Rubettes and ABBA. The superstars from England and Sweden met each other for the first time a couple of weeks ago. At the French Riviera in Cannes. Where The Rubettes were distinguished for their successes by the French station Europe 1 and where ABBA was promoting their feature film 'ABBA - The Movie' at the same time. And since they were all staying at the same hotel, it didn't take long for them to run into each other. Rubettes singer Alan Williams was flabbergasted: "When I found myself facing Anni-Frid for the first time, I was getting heart palpitations." But since Benny was there as well, the otherwise so outspoken Englishman had to make do with some polite conversation. Joker John Richardson was very sad that Agnetha hadn't come along. She had to stay at home to take care of baby Christian. "Too bad, I think she is so sweet," he sighed with a whimsical look. But then they quickly started to talk shop. And Mick even fetched the audio tapes from the brand new Rubettes album 'Some Time In Old Church' from his hotel room to play them to the Swedes. And he beamed like a honey cake when Björn made a copy of the soft Rubettes ballads to listen to them again back in Sweden in all peace and quiet. "Perhaps you could write something for us at some point," John said full of hope, "after all the name ABBA means a guaranteed hit. And that's exactly what we need at the moment!"