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ABBA / Live at Wembley Arena

By Paul Sinclair

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ABBA / Live at Wembley Arena

A new ABBA live album will be released this September as part of the group’s 40th Anniversary Celebration. ABBA Live at Wembley Arena presents the complete concert at the famous London venue from 10 November 1979.

The headline news is that this release brings us a ‘new’ ABBA song called I’m Still Alive. This track was performed on the night but never released commercially anywhere. Unusually, it’s a collaboration between Agnetha (music) and Bjorn (lyrics). The full track listing for the concert is below. If you are wondering what Gammal Fäbodpsalm is, it’s an instrumental piece of music (written by Swedish composer Oskar Lindberg) used to open the concerts.

Live at Wembley Arena will be issued on 29 September 2014 as a two CD set and a 3LP vinyl edition.

2CD Edition

3LP Set

abba Live

Track listing

  • 1. Gammal Fäbodpsalm
  • 2. Voulez-Vous
  • 3. If It Wasn’t For The Nights
  • 4. As Good As New
  • 5. Knowing Me, Knowing You
  • 6. Rock Me
  • 7. Chiquitita
  • 8. Money, Money, Money
  • 9. I Have A Dream
  • 10. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
  • 11. SOS
  • 12. Fernando
  • 13. The Name Of The Game
  • 14. Eagle
  • 15. Thank You For The Music
  • 16. Why Did It Have To Be Me
  • 17. Intermezzo No 1
  • 18. I’m Still Alive
  • 19. Summer Night City
  • 20. Take A Chance On Me
  • 21. Does Your Mother Know
  • 22. Hole In Your Soul
  • 23. The Way Old Friends Do
  • 24. Dancing Queen
  • 25. Waterloo

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29 Comments

29 thoughts on “ABBA / Live at Wembley Arena”

  1. the biggest problem is that the sound is muffled !
    way too much low frequencies !

    for the first time I prefer hearing the bootleg than the official product

  2. ‘Live At Wembley’ has been a small to moderate Hit in several Countries. Some ABBA Fans thought that Universal would promote it, (Globally), as much as Polydor did with ‘ABBA Gold’ when that was first released in September 1992. This is because a lot of Fans thought that ‘Live’ had the potential to be as big as ‘Gold’ was. It was never going to happen. ‘Live’ Albums hardly ever sell as well as Studio Albums or ‘Hits’ Albums. Universal clearly did not see it as having the potential to be huge. Otherwise they’d have actually spent a lot of cash on promoting it. I’ve been an ABBA Fan since 1974 & I had no interest at all in the ‘Live’ Album. Even in Countries where ‘Live’ started off well, it has dropped in Week 2. (Germany – In at No.9 then a drop to No.50). Reading around some ABBA Forums I noticed that a lot of Fans were so excited about ‘Live’ that they thought it was going to be a massive Global Hit. They assumed that millions of people would be as excited about it as they were. I just knew all along that it was a bigger Hit in their heads than it was ever going to be in the Global Charts.

  3. Paul – Every Monday Alan Jones does a Chart Commentary on the
    previous days new UK Singles & Albums Charts. He has access to the
    Sales figures of all of the Hit’s in those Charts. It was he who revealed
    that the ‘Live at Wembley’ Album sold 3,503 copies to enter at No.30
    in the UK. The UK seems rather exhausted by ABBA in 2014, which is
    why no Universal ABBA release has sold well this Year. On Week
    Ending 19th April ABBA had 3 Albums in the Top 75. ‘Gold’ was at
    No.57, (down from No.48), on 1,479 Sales. But that had an excuse for
    the low Sales. It was its 469th Top 75 Week, & it is on over 5,100,000
    UK Sales since 1992. In the same Chart the 3 CD ’40th Anniversary
    Gold’ was in at No.59. But, the UK was not interested in it. It then fell
    to No.79, & never entered the Top 100 again. It sold 1,448 copies to get
    to No.59. And in at No.71 was the ‘Deluxe’ Edition of ‘Waterloo’, which became only the 2nd ABBA ‘Deluxe’ Album to reach the UK Top 100. It
    sold 1,224 copies to reach No.71. (‘The Visitors’ is the only other
    ‘Deluxe’ ABBA Album to reach the UK Top 100 – No.62 in May 2012).
    Despite the numerous releases for ABBA’s 40th Anniversary, their biggest UK success in 2014 was when ‘Gold’ reached No.31 at the start of April. No 2014 UK ABBA release has sold very well at all. As a contrast, there is still much interest in Germany, where the 3 CD Gold reached No.3 & the ‘Live’ Album reached No.9. I can’t see the ‘Deluxe’ Edition of ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ reviving much interest in ABBA in the UK. Even in 1980 Epic Records only pressed a small number of copies of it, as they did not think that there was a demand for an Album where ABBA sang only in Spanish, & they were so huge, that Year, that ‘Super Trouper’ became the first UK Album to have 1 Million Advance Orders. So, the Spanish Album is not going to do much in 2014, when the UK seems to have lost a great deal of interest in ABBA.

  4. The ‘Live At Wembley’ Album entered the UK Top 100 at No.30 on
    3,503 Sales. In Week 2 it fell out of the Top 100. This makes it ABBA’s
    least successful UK Top 40 Album, after ‘Waterloo’, which got to No.28
    in 1974. But, it is also their only Album to spend just 1 Week on the
    entire Chart. Even ‘Waterloo’ managed 2 Weeks, as did ‘Love Stories’
    which reached No.51 in 1998, but at least managed a 2nd Week in the
    Chart. So, as far as the UK goes, the ‘Live’ Album has been a disaster,
    as regards Sales & Chart success. It has failed to enter the Irish Top 100
    at all. It has been a much bigger Hit in Germany, (No.9), Austria, (No.9), Switzerland, (No.10), The Netherlands, (No.12), Sweden, (15),
    Denmark, (No.16), & Belgium, (No.16).

  5. I disagree with Colin that it does not matter whether the songs are recorded in a studio or live.. For me all the live recordings will be special and they will definitely be different than the studio recordings. It will let us who had to live behind the iron curtain under awful communist regime to feel the atmosphere at Wembly arena in 1979. I am personally grateful for that..

  6. I believe so, Joe H. It’s very confusing, especially since ‘Wembley Arena’ was actually called ‘Empire Pool’ in 1979. Wembley Stadium (where I don’t think they played, happy to be proven wrong) is a different building, although it was located close by. I’d be rather surprised to learn that ABBA had played both the Empire Pool and the Stadium in the same year.

    The original 1923-built Wembley Stadium no longer stands, as it was replaced by a new Wembley Stadium in 2007. Along the road from W.A. was located CTS Wembley, a top-specced movie recording studio that was never very busy, possibly because the Wembley Stadium complex is miles and miles from central London and the rest of the music and film biz.

  7. Personally, I don’t really like much ‘Live’ music, so this is one ABBA release that I’ll be ignoring. I realise that it has ‘I’m Still Alive’ on it, & that has never been on Vinyl or CD before. However, it is hardly a strong ABBA Track. If ABBA had released it on Vinyl in 1979 or 1980, it would have been a ‘B’ Side of one of their Singles. Just as the equally ordinary ‘I Wonder’ ended up as the ‘B’ Side of ‘The Name Of The Game’ in 1977. Some Fans are making out that this ‘Live’ Album is the first ‘New’ one from ABBA since ‘The Visitors’ in 1981. It has 25 Tracks on it. Only ‘I’m Still Alive’ & a (less than), 2 minute instrumental have not been released by ABBA before. 22 of the 25 Tracks were released by ABBA in the 1970’s. With ‘The Way Old Friends Do’ being released on ‘Super Trouper’ in 1980. For any Fans to pretend that this ‘Live’ Album is a ‘New’ ABBA Album is absolutely absurd. I go by the actual Songs, & not whether they were Studio recordings in the past, & ‘Live’ on this 2014 Album.

    1. I disagree with you, I prefer live albums, warts and all! In the studio it can be made “too pure” and vocals are messed about with, like Tretow “sprinkling fairy dust” which gave them a sound too trebley or “toppy” at times. It’s just a shame that this wasn’t accompanied by a full concert dvd too!

  8. Pingback: ABBA / Gracias Por La Musica deluxe edition / CD+DVD | superdeluxeedition

  10. Saw the show twice stateside (New York, Toronto) and all that’s missing from the set list is “Not Bad at All,” which is no loss at all,
    I’m curious if this will come as a Digipak and match my other ABBA Deluxe sets, including the plastic exterior protective sleeve. I had to hunt around for an extra to sleeve ‘”Super Trouper” (which came with a “Deluxe” band instead of the sleeve) and hope I don’t have to do it again for this.

  12. This concert is the night I was there in 1979.From a whole week I am so happy they picked this Nov 10th show.I actually like the cover as it shows Benny up front singing with the other three and captures the rockier edge they had to the 79 concerts really well.

    1. I wish they released the Dublin concert, Benny played Danny boy instead of the opening instrumental. They also played a tribute birthday song for Frida, called “not bad at all”. Fantastic to hear ABBA live on record.

      1. They didn’t record any other shows on multitrack than the Wembley shows. Not Bad At All was not a tribute birthday song for Frida – it was merely a standard segment of the show to highlight Tomas Ledin.

  13. Surely this is the prime opportunity to produce an accompanying full length movie of the show??? ‘ABBA in Concert’ was a series of edited highlightsof fully-filmed shows at Wembley, so the source material must exist somewhere – no doubt with the Swedish TV company who produced the programme in the first place. If Universal really wanted to give us a piece of ABBA gold, that would be the product!!

    1. There is no footage left over from the Wembley shows. Unfortunately the vision contained on Abba in Concert DVD is all that could be located in the vault.

      1. Really looking forward to this release. Had an edited version on cassette that was broadcast on Radio One. Always loved the intro music ( Gammal Fäbodpsalm ). Also, finally hearing the much praised I’m Still Alive is another highlight. Being remastered, it should sound superb.

  14. Really looking forward to the triple vinyl edition for the sleeve/inners artwork, although I think the front cover image could have benefitted from a bit of more post production Photoshop work (eliminating the mic cord from across face etc), especially as they went to so much effort creating a coloured version of this monochrome shot. Great to have new material (even live) and Benny assures fans it is not mixed and overdubbed as with the original ABBA Live album in 1986 – just digitally remastered.

  15. I wonder if the new song is the one featured briefly on one of the TV anniversary specials a couple of years back. I heard and saw this brief video clip of a lovely slow number sung by Agnetha at one of the Wembley shows. I spent days on the internet trying to track it down to an album etc. Never did find it. I think it was part of ‘The Girl With The Golden Hair’ segment. Fingers crossed it is on here

    1. It certainly sounds interesting. Also missing from a full release so far, I think, is “Get on the Carousel” – another part of The Girl With Golden Hair that featured in The Movie.

    1. Very true, there are lots and lots of very good pics from the ’79 tour, eg the picture sleeve from the UK release I Have A Dream single, but why this one?

  18. With “I’m Still Alive” finally being released, let the chorus begin for the release of the other ABBA holy grails, such as “Just Like That.” Very excited for this live album.

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