ABBA in Concert

A film showing the Swedish pop group ABBA's tour of North America and Europe in 1979. The majority of the film is devoted to the concert at Wembley Arena in London but we also have footage from certain US concerts plus backstage and between-concerts scenes.

A great reminder of the phenomenon that was ABBA - the innocent, singalong lyrics, the wonderful tunes. Also a reminder when music still had a degree of innocence and wonder.

So, as you would expect, the music is great. However, the rest, even the concert theatrics are quite dull. The behind-the-scenes stuff doesn't add anything, is largely bland and even feels staged. The concerts capture the vibrancy and innocence of the band, but the stage work feels sort of amateurish. This amateurishness adds to the charm in one way but just feels clumsy in another.

Maybe I just feel disappointed that an ABBA show would seem so ordinary.

Also worth noting that this tour was ABBA's final tour. They broke up three years later, never having toured again.

I would like to tell everybody that this concert special is perfect!! Although there are songs that were not included on the DVD, a lot of Abba's greatest hits were included.

The only thing I didn't like much is that the song Waterloo is not complete but just part of it, but the rest of the special is excellent. I love it very much, and I would recommend it to everybody.

From beginning to end you can't stop dancing, the songs are great, the energy, the music, everything is fantastic. And I'm a musician so I know what I'm talking about.

I would love to see another new release of abba's concerts on DVD as soon as possible.

And to finish this up, I would like to say that Agnetha was gorgeous, so beautiful, and was and still is a very good human being. She's one of the loves of my life, he he. God bless you Agnetha! Thanks to you and the others in the group for giving the people such fantastic and beautiful music, take care you all;

Alberto Marrero

Really great concert footage. I remember seeing this (or parts of it) on TV many years ago - in the early 1980s. It starts off as an ABBA on tour feature, covering the US leg of the tour, but the London part contains a lot of complete songs.

I know that back in 1979/1980 it was hard to film live concerts. The choice was either low res video (with the typical smears and other artifacts) or film (35mm or 16mm), the latter looking so much better but being much more expensive and cumbersome. This looks like being filmed in 16mm and the DVD being made of an excellent negative. I can be wrong though. Not much detail in the shadow areas - it won't print on film stock used available back than anyway, but color, sharpness and texture are excellent. Even as we speak digital video still isn't quite able to produce that beautiful, polished and silky image as a good film production can.

The music is - of course - terrific. Great arrangements, great performance and incredible sound, wonderfully mixed - as close to perfect as it gets. A must have for any ABBA fan. Nice bonus material with reconstructed full length tracks on the DVD too.

ABBA were never known as a live act. In fact in their hey day, they were accused of being a hit machine. This nowadays is rejected, the ins and outs of each ABBA song is now well documented to have been a very complicated derivation of a song from its early stages to its completed form.

ABBA In Concert is ABBA at their best, recently released on DVD the show flows through their gruelling US tour. A small insight into the group's day to day lives is included, but mainly the music is concentrated on.

I recently watched Madonna's Confessions on the Dancefloor Show on TV, now also out on DVD, this show by Madonna had undertaken many hours of editing, overdubbing and to be frank was a fraud. She did not sound anything like this in reality, she was taken into the studio and redid many of the vocals.

This in ABBA's In Concert DVD is evidently not done, the group is shown performing live as live was intended, with absolutely no overdubs and a true live sound. The difference between a Madonna "live" concert and an ABBA Live concert is massive, Madonna defrauded the viewer, ABBA played it live as true professionals, and I respect ABBA for having shown the world that they were TRUE artists and not frauds like many of the stars of today with all their fake voice enhancements.

Long live ABBA, they will be remembered for far longer than a Madonna or anything produced in today's throw away music world.

Being a huge and devoted ABBA Fan for about 30 years, I was thrilled that the '79 ABBA concert was finally released on DVD! But due to time constrictions when the concert was filmed for television, there is a bunch of concert footage that wasn't included. For example, Agnetha's vocal and piano solo of "I'm Still Alive." It would have been absolutely THRILLING if they could've included that in the concert DVD. There are also other songs not included that I would've loved to have seen the Girls of ABBA sing live.

If you're an ABBA Fan like I am, the DVD is most definitely worth buying and watching over and over again. It is very heart pounding and almost impossible to control yourself from singing along with the Girls.

Just enjoy what little of the concert is on the DVD! I surely have! And with any luck, maybe another concert DVD will be released called "More ABBA in Concert"!!