1974

Stig Anderson was really prepared for the Eurovision contest that would be held in Brighton, England in 1974. He was going to pick a fast paced title. With a lot of thought and planning he came up with the title Waterloo which he felt could be understood and pronounced by those who did not understand English. In the meantime Benny and Björn had written another good possibility, Hasta Mañana, but this song had been written with Agnetha in mind, and all agreed that the chosen song should include all four members. So it was to be Waterloo.

The Swedish heat for the contest entry was on February 9, 1974. Waterloo won easily, taking 60% of the judges' votes. ABBA also decided to work on the visual part of their act. The director of the Eurovision orchestra was Sven-Olof Walldoff. He agreed to dress in a Napoleon outfit. ABBA's costumes were sequined and different from anything that they had previously worn. Bjorn even had a ``lucky'' guitar made in the shape of a star. ABBA wanted Europe to remember this performance! In the meantime, Stig had Waterloo released all over Europe. In addition to Bjorn's lucky guitar, Agnetha brought a stuffed donkey and Frida insisted on wearing a big floppy hat. On April 6th, The Eurovision Song Contest was held in Brighton, England. The contest was held in the newly refurbished Dome Theatre. Waterloo won, champagne corks flew and the celebration was on for ABBA. A very bright future lay ahead of them. Suddenly they had all kinds of promotional work to complete. Within a few weeks Waterloo had reached #1 in six countries. In America it peaked at #6 on the Billboard charts. May brought the release of the Waterloo LP.

After all the success that ABBA had after winning the Eurovision song contest, they did extensive publicity for their album. They traveled to America and appeared on the Merv Griffin talk show.

On Sunday, November 17th, 1974, they embarked on their first tour. The first stop was at the Falkonerteater in Copenhagen, Denmark. They played to a sellout crowd. During the next 13 days they visited West Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Following this first leg of their tour they took a week off to go home to Sweden to be with their families. The next leg was to start on December 8th. They were to go to England for five shows. ABBA had not caught on with the English public yet and were considered one hit wonders by Britain's music critics. The cost of the show would be astronomical for ABBA. The transfer of equipment alone was very expensive. Because they did not feel like they were taken seriously in Britain they decided not go. The first two weeks had been disappointing with the exception of Denmark. ABBA were not selling enough tickets and were actually not making money, but instead going into debt.