ABBA review: Flaming Sambucas dance down memory lane
The Adelaide band has taken a Murray Bridge audience on a trip through ABBA's history.
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More than 100 people have filled Murray Bridge’s town hall for a sold-out ABBA Waterloo 50th anniversary show on Saturday night.
The show featured Adelaide's Flaming Sambucas and even a dress-up competition.
In 1974, the juggernaut that became ABBA found their international audience via the final of the 1974 Eurovision Song contest.
Their song Waterloo won Sweden the chocolates and launched one of the most astonishing pop music careers in history.
An interesting footnote is that Olivia Newton-John competed for the UK that year, performing Long Live Love, and came fourth, tying with Luxembourg.
The Flaming Sambucas have been stalwarts on the Adelaide music scene for the decades, they are corporate favourites and can get a pub audience up and jumping from the first note.
They are consummate musicians and delivered a pretty flawless performance of all the chosen songs.
The singers voices harmonised beautifully, with no wrong notes to be heard at any point.
I can’t imagine how often they’ve performed this show, yet they still looked like they were having lots of fun, which was something the audience certainly responded to.
All the favourites were there: SOS, Mamma Mia, Fernando, Honey Honey, Bang a Boomerang, Waterloo and many more.
The band also chose to include the 2022 release Don’t Shut Me Down,
which formed part of the “avatar” show at London’s O2 Arena.
Inviting audience members up on the stage to dance is always a brave move but during Knowing Me, Knowing You Ken and Rob did a great job and looked like they were having a blast.
Blending live music with archival footage on the big screen behind the musicians was a stroke of genius.
This show was essentially a trip down memory lane.
Being reminded of your earlier days through song is one thing, but getting to see photos, video and news footage that you remember from the time really personalises the experience.
It was wonderful seeing footage of ABBA on the Adelaide Town Hall balcony before their Footy Park concert on March 8, 1977: the massive crowds in Rundle Street losing their collective minds at their idols, with the much-loved 5KA announcer David “Daisy” Day emceeing the proceedings.
Even if you’re not really a fan of ABBA, and I have to admit that I’m not, this is a fun show and you’ll know many more words to these songs than you’d care to admit.
My feet were certainly tapping along for most of it and the 75 minutes went by super quickly.
If you get the chance to see the Flaming Sambucas do anything, don’t miss it – you won’t be disappointed.
The group will continue their ABBA tour with a show in Victor Harbor on November 30; tickets are available for $39 at www.trybooking.com.
