LONDON: It’s 50 years since ABBA won a major battle with “Waterloo.”
A half-century ago on Saturday, the Swedish quartet triumphed at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with the peppy love song, which opens: “My my, at Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender, and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way.”
The song rang out again Saturday at London’s Waterloo railway station — also named after the 1815 battle that dealt defeat to the French leader — where a choir belted out a rendition for commuters.
In the English coastal town of Brighton, where the 1974 competition was held, fans were staging a flashmob dance and silent ABBA disco to mark the anniversary.
Eurovision victory turned ABBA into a pop juggernaut, by far the most successful band to win the pan-continental music contest, which will hold its 68th edition in May in ABBA’s home country, Sweden.
ABBA’s melodic disco pop sold hundreds of millions of records worldwide. The stage musical “Mamma Mia!” based on its songs is 25 years old and spawned two movies.
The band members have not performed together live for four decades, but released a comeback album, “Voyage,” in 2021. Every day, fans attend a concert by digital “ABBA-tars” at the hit show “Abba Voyage,” which opened in London in 2022.
In a thank-you message to fans on Saturday, the four band members said it was “slightly dizzying and deeply humbling” to know that their songs had been passed down the generations and “still resonate around the world.”
“Music you discover and learn to love when you grow up or even later in life has a way of staying with you forever,” said Agnetha Faltskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. “We share that experience with you and to know that our music has become a constant in your lives is a wonderful thing.”
This year’s Eurovision final will take place May 11 in Malmö, after Swedish singer Loreen won last year’s competition with “Tattoo.”
Happy ABBA-versary, fans mark 50 years since ‘Waterloo’ took the world by storm
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Happy ABBA-versary, fans mark 50 years since ‘Waterloo’ took the world by storm
- The song rang out again Saturday at London’s Waterloo railway station
- In the English coastal town of Brighton, where the 1974 competition was held, fans were staging a flashmob dance and silent ABBA disco to mark the anniversary
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
