In early 1975 ABBA went on their first European tour. The following article comes from the Swedish POSTER magazine. Click on the thumbnails for larger pictures:
For more than 6 months after their victory in the Eurovision Song Contest,
ABBA stayed off the live stage. They had more than enough to do promoting themselves through TV-appearances, interviews and meetings with tour agents and record label executives all over the world. Because ABBA is an international group. The same week they won the Eurovision Song Contest their song "Ring Ring" was doing very well on the charts in South Africa!

Then, finally, they came to Europe for a carefully planned concert tour. The main country was Germany, where they are incredible popular. They stayed there for a week.
Before the first concert it was a tense and nervous atmosphere backstage, after all it was their first time on stage since Brighton. For three months they had been working non stop on a 90 minute long show. Two hours a day the girls had rehearsed their dance steps. Björn and Benny had written new songs and searched for good musicians.

But there was no need to worry. The show was a hit with the German audience, even the two pessimists of the group, Agnetha and Björn, had to admit that.
The group's imaginative stage clothes received a lot of attention. It has become something of a trademark of the group ever since Brighton.
- Some people find the clothes sexy. I don't know, as long as they don't take the attion off the music, says Anni-Frid.
After the Scandinavian tour later on, there will be a tour in the USA, someday. They went there
already last year, but they never performed, they were only there to promote themselves with "Waterloo" which was moving on the single charts over there. But the next time they go there it will be for the real thing and the Americans will learn that there are more to Sweden than just "Ogachaka" and Blue Swede [referring to Björn Skifs and his group Blue Swede number 1 American hit single "Hooked On A Feeling" in
1974].
When it comes to Europe, ABBA have already established themselves as something like a newer the New Seekers, the group that disbanded this spring.


