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Select subject: Tour description | Setlist | European leg | Nordic countries

In 1974, the international breakthrough with ’Waterloo’ happened. At the same time the four friends cemented their working relationships and changed their name to ABBA. It was only then that they conducted a tour that took them outside Swedish soil. The original plans for the outing were quite extensive, but it was soon clear that the ’Waterloo’ hit alone would not be enough to sustain a really major tour. Tentative dates in England, Scotland, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Turkey, Israel, Greece, Yugoslavia and Spain were abandoned, and only West Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Nordic countries remained.

Agnetha and Björn didn’t want to be away from their one-year-old daughter Linda for too long either, and therefore the itinerary was divided into two parts: Denmark, West Germany, Austria and Switzerland in November (as it turned out, the Switzerland concert was cancelled because of poor ticket sales), with a trek of the Nordic countries following in January 1975. However, except for this last leg of the tour, the venture was only partially successful. Clearly, ABBA had not built up the broad fan base needed to really attract a non-Scandinavian audience to a concert hall.

The first concert was on 17 November 1974 and the final concert was on 22 January 1975. In this tour ABBA performed 18 concerts in 18 cities in 6 different countries.