ABBA's last concert: Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, March 27, 1980

About the artist

ABBA were a Swedish quartet. Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson met in June 1966 and began writing songs together; in the spring of 1969 they met Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad, who became their partners^[1]. The four recorded their first single, "People Need Love," in the spring of 1972^[2], and on April 6, 1974, they won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton with "Waterloo," under a name made from their initials^[1][3]. "Dancing Queen" (1976) became their only US No. 1, in 1977^[1].

Their ties to Japan went back further than the group. "She's My Kind Of Girl," Björn and Benny's first single as a duo, flopped in Sweden but reached the Japanese top ten in 1972. ABBA themselves broke through there in 1978: within half a year of a promotional visit that November, they had sold 1.5 million records in Japan, and Voulez-Vous spent two weeks at No. 1^[2].

Why this was the last show

ABBA were never keen on touring. According to the official site, the studio always came first, and none of them liked to travel. Björn and Benny had each played at least 1,000 shows in 1960s Sweden and felt they had done their share. Frida enjoyed being on stage, while Agnetha was ambivalent; her musical home, she said, was "the studio, not the stage"^[4]. Before 1979, the group's touring outside Sweden amounted to a few weeks in Europe and a short trip to Australia^[4].

Still, manager Stig Anderson and the group agreed that the United States was the one market where they had to tour. The plan was an American tour in the autumn of 1979, extended to Europe and wrapped up with two weeks in Japan in the spring of 1980^[4]. In August, Björn and Benny wrote "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" as a single to go with the tour.

The tour opened in Edmonton, Canada, on September 13. The American leg was only a partial success, with some shows failing to sell out. The band's private plane flew into a storm, a terrifying hour and a half for Agnetha, who was already afraid of flying, and a Washington show was canceled when she came down with flu. The European leg, which opened in Gothenburg on October 19, mostly sold out, took in six nights at Wembley Arena in London, and ended in Dublin on November 15^[4].

Their private lives were changing too. Björn and Agnetha announced their divorce in 1979^[1]; according to the official site, they had decided to end their marriage while making Voulez-Vous^[5].

In January 1980, Björn and Benny wrote five songs on a trip to Barbados, and on February 4 the group started recording the next album at Polar Music Studios in Stockholm^[5]. About a month later they left for Japan. The Japanese dates were not billed as a farewell, and the official site says nobody knew for certain then that they would be the last^[2].

After Japan, ABBA's public profile dropped to its lowest point, with only a few television appearances^[6]. In February 1981, Benny and Frida announced their divorce as well^[1], which the official site says widened the emotional distance within the group^[6]. On April 27, 1981, they taped the TV special Dick Cavett Meets ABBA in Stockholm, playing nine songs for a studio audience that Cavett insisted be made up of English-speaking Swedes^[7]. The Visitors, their eighth album, came out at the end of the year^[1][8].

Sessions for a ninth album in May 1982 stalled after three songs. Björn and Benny were in promising talks with lyricist Tim Rice about a musical, and the official site says the motivation to finish an album simply was not there. Instead, the group put out a singles collection with two new recordings; the songs cut in August, "The Day Before You Came," "Cassandra" and "Under Attack," were the last they ever recorded as a foursome^[8]. After The Singles – The First Ten Years came out in November and a round of television appearances, on December 11 they appeared by satellite from Stockholm on Britain's The Late Late Breakfast Show, singing "Under Attack" and, with a large group of children, "I Have A Dream." It was their last public performance, and again nobody knew it^[8].

No split was ever announced^[9]. The official site says the group decided to take a break at the end of 1982^[1], and that because none of them felt a collective wish to reunite, the break went on indefinitely^[8]. Since the television appearances of 1981 and 1982 were not concerts, this archive treats the Budokan show of March 27, 1980, their last concert before a paying audience, as ABBA's final stage.

What is known about the day

The 1980 Japan tour ran to 11 shows between March 12 and 27, most of them at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, with others in Kōriyama, Fukuoka, Osaka and Nagoya^[6]. More than 100,000 people came over the 16 days, and all six Budokan shows sold out. Tour producer Thomas Johansson said only the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan had sold out the hall to the same extent^[2]. Universal Music Japan would later describe the tour as the group's first and last concerts in the country^[10].

Behind-the-scenes footage of the trip, later included on the DVD ABBA In Japan, shows the four arriving at the airport, riding the bullet train and appearing at a party for the fifth anniversary of Discomate, their Japanese record label at the time^[10][11].

The tour opened at the Budokan on March 12^[2]. A Stars and Stripes photographer caught the four as they finished that first concert^[12]. Thirty-four years later, Frida said she remembered the night vividly: the audience sat quietly throughout and gave no reaction at all, and she wondered whether the group had done something wrong. She felt someone ought to tell them it was fine to rush the stage or clap along. From the second night on, she said, the response was completely different^[13].

Keiko Imaizumi, a Japanese radio DJ who saw one of the Budokan shows, recalled in a 2021 column that her ticket had been hard to get, that her seat was against the wall on the first floor, and that she could not see much of the stage. The set, she wrote, was one hit after another^[14].

No contemporary report of the songs played on March 27 has been found. The official live album Live At Wembley Arena, which captures the whole show of November 10, 1979, four months earlier, runs to 25 tracks: it opens with "Gammal fäbodpsalm," takes in "Voulez-Vous," "Chiquitita" and "SOS," and closes with "The Way Old Friends Do," "Dancing Queen" and "Waterloo"^[15][16]. The fan-edited setlist.fm gives the same running order for the last Budokan night, with the addition of backing singer Tomas Ledin performing his own song "Not Bad At All"^[17]; the official site confirms Ledin had a solo spot on the tour. "I'm Still Alive," a new ballad Agnetha wrote and sang to Björn's lyrics, was also part of the show and was never recorded in the studio^[4].

The last song has not been confirmed. setlist.fm ends the encore with "Waterloo," but the fan reference site ABBA Omnibus says "Waterloo" was not played on the Japan tour^[17][18]. If that is right, the final song was "Dancing Queen."

On March 27, the four walked off the Budokan stage for the last time; the official site says it was the night ABBA said farewell to touring for good^[2]. They flew home, and on April 9, after almost two months away from the studio for the tour and its rehearsals, they went back to work on the album^[5].

What the show left behind

The album they finished after Japan was named Super Trouper, after the big spotlights used on stadium tours. "The Winner Takes It All," recorded in June, drew partly on the end of Björn and Agnetha's marriage, and Agnetha sang it^[5]. The record, released on November 3, 1980, closed with a live recording of "The Way Old Friends Do," taken from the Wembley shows on the tour^[5][19].

After the 1982 break, the four never gave another concert together. The official site says they turned down large offers for reunion concerts^[6], including, according to The Globe and Mail, a reported $1 billion package to tour^[20]. In 2015, Björn said the 1982 split was a break that would remain one: "You'll never see us onstage again"^[21].

A complete show from the last tour became an official release only 34 years later. Live At Wembley Arena (2014) presented the concert of November 10, 1979, in full. It was ABBA's first live album since ABBA Live in 1986; Universal Music Japan noted that about a million people had applied for the limited tickets, and the album gave "I'm Still Alive" its first release^[16]. That April, at a 40th-anniversary party at Tate Modern in London, Björn and Frida recorded a message for Japanese fans, their first in 34 years. Björn said he had looked it up: March 27, 1980, was their last concert, and it was in Tokyo^[13].

In January 2016, at the opening of an ABBA-themed restaurant in Stockholm, the four were photographed together for the first time in decades, though they did not sing^[1][21]. On June 5 that year, at a private party at Berns in Stockholm marking 50 years since Björn and Benny first met, all four were reported to have sung in front of some 300 invited guests^[22]. Citing the Swedish paper Expressen, NME reported that Agnetha and Frida sang "The Way Old Friends Do," with Björn and Benny joining them near the end, though accounts of the song differed^[21][22]. It was neither a public show nor an official reunion^[22].

In April 2018, the four were reported to have gone back into the studio to record new songs, with avatars, not the band, to go on the road^[23]. On September 2, 2021, ABBA announced Voyage, their first album since The Visitors 40 years earlier, for release on November 5, and released two new songs, "I Still Have Faith In You" and "Don't Shut Me Down." It was recorded at Benny's studio in Stockholm^[24]. In October, Benny said he had never said "this is it" in 1982, but he could now: "This is it." Björn nodded^[9].

The same announcement unveiled ABBA Voyage, a show at a purpose-built 3,000-capacity ABBA Arena in London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Digital versions of the four, created by George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic through motion capture, would perform with a ten-piece live band^[24]. The avatars show the group as they looked in 1979^[20], the year of their last tour.

All four attended the invitation-only premiere on May 26, 2022. They did not perform; the avatars did, built from five weeks the four had spent performing in motion-capture suits. Björn called it "one of the most daring projects that anyone has done in the music industry, ever"^[25].

The show is still running. By April 2026, NME reported, it had drawn four million visitors over 1,415 performances, and while the singing is done by avatars, the drummer plays live every night^[26]. In September 2026 the run was extended to June 28, 2027^[27]. Pophouse, the Swedish company Björn co-founded, also worked with Industrial Light & Magic on the KISS avatars unveiled at the end of that band's final show in December 2023^[28].

ABBA did release a new album under their name in 2021, but the four have never again given a concert themselves. That is why this archive files the show under "Final in retrospect."

The Budokan night ended with no announcement and no farewell, and 34 years later Björn had to look it up to confirm it had been the last. The four themselves have not returned to the stage since; in London, their 1979 selves are still singing.