In today's Sunday edition of The Australian (daily newspaper). There are four pages to commemorate those crazy days in March of 1977 when Australia was ABBA-land more than anything else. The articles look really good. Here's an example about the trainer ABBA worked with, and a picture of a beautiful Frida together with Norton.
Thanks to Ian Cole, for the tip and Greg Hartney for rushing out and buying the paper this morning.
THE BODYGUARD
Trainer and bodygurad Richard Norton was one of the few to get close to ABBA on their Australian tour. Norton, with fellow Australian martial artist Bob Jones was the last line of defence between the stars and hysterical fans."We had a situation getting out of the Myer Music Bowl when our car was lifted and moved into another direction", he says. That's how many people were tugging... We had to get out and try to find our way through because you literally couldn't see - it was just a sea of people.
Norton's fondest memories of the tour is spending time with Björn, Anna and Frida during their daily workouts. All three were extremely fit. "They were into it and I gave them hard workouts", he says. Benny, however, remained in his room, smoking cigarettes.
"A lot of artists can get pretentious but the girls didn't even wear make-up off stage. They were so natural and down to earth and seemingly unaffected by who they were and how big they were, and that was really refreshing. Just walking around in their bikinis. There were no airs. It was just a nice, disarming quality."