BRIGHTON 1974
Three Brits reveal how they became Abba fans on day one
While some UK judges may not have been impressed, even before the show started, Abba’s arrival at the Eurovision Song Contest turned every head in Brighton, “as if they’d beamed down from the Starship Enterprise”, according to dazzled onlooker Jacqui Shevlin. She was not quite 16 when she saw them in a hotel lobby, where the contestants were gathering on the afternoon before the contest. “When the lift opened and they stepped out, it was like, ‘Wow!’ I’d never seen men in high-heeled silver boots before!” she says. “They had this golden aura around them, and they lit the place up. We were all gobsmacked.”
Also in the lobby that day was a local singer, Bobby Ward, who says he tagged along with a journalist pal (“Fernando, ironically”). “It’s like yesterday. They walked across the lobby and their clothes were incredible,” he says. “In those days, I was used to putting on different clothes for my stage work but this was on another level. They all walked incredibly slowly because their heels were so high! It gave me time to look at them. But they were quiet. They were probably in their own zone, and I don’t think they spoke a lot of English at the time.”
Abba boarded a coach with the other acts for the short journey along the seafront to the Dome, where the contest was held. By contrast, their rival performers didn’t impress Shevlin. “They were very low-key — in tank-tops and beards and woolly hats,” she says. Later, she’d watch the event from the wings.
“The audience were all in black tie, the ladies in long dresses, and I thought they all looked so old. It was meant to be a pop concert, but they were all silent — it was surreal. When Abba came on, Bjorn had a star-shaped guitar and the girls bounded on like the Andrex puppy and lit the place up.”
Also in the crowd were pop star Leo Sayer, who’d just had a hit with The Show Must Go On, and the man who discovered him, writer/ producer David Courtney. “When I saw Abba in their gaudy, silky outfits, I turned to Leo and said, ‘Where are this lot from?’ ” Courtney says. “And he said, ‘That’s the Swedish entry.’ As soon as I heard them perform Waterloo, I said, ‘That’s it, that’s the winner, that’s a hit record.’ In those days none of us had any great desire to go into Eurovision. It was seen as a bit naff. But Abba changed that. I’m a massive Beatles fan — they’re a great rock band — but when you look at Abba’s music, they have to go down as the best pop band of all time.”
Courtney, now 74, later set up a Brighton attraction called the Walk of Fame and inducted Abba on the 30th anniversary of their success. ��
