ABBA were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Barry & Robin Gibb from The Bee Gees after a montage of pictures and video clips were shown.  Occasional shots of Benny and Frida in the audience could be seen.

Benny and Frida went on stage and gave speeches, firstly Frida, then Benny (who seemed a little restless while Frida was talking).  After that, Benny accompanied country singer Faith Hill on the piano for a performance of The Winner Takes It All.

Other inductees that night were Genesis (attended by Frida's old producer Phil Collins); The Hollies, The Stooges and reggae star Jimmy Cliff).

Rumours that ABBA had recorded a message together at The Rival Hotel in early February for this event proved unfounded.

Benny and Frida gave press interviews backstage on the honour of being included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1. Introduction by Barry and Robin Gibb who recalled that they all took part in the Music for UNICEF - A Gift of Song Concert together in 1979.
   
    
2. Acceptance speeches by Frida and Benny. Frida mentioned her grandson, Jonathan, who was in the audience.  Benny gave Frida a kiss at the end of their speeches.
   
    
3. The Winner Takes It All - Faith Hill with Benny on piano.
   
    
4. Aftonbladet
   Published: Sweden
   Footage of the press conference followed by a brief interview with Frida where she says she was very angry that Madonna got the award before they did - but she was joking!
   
    
5. Artisan News
   Broadcast: USA
   A report on the evening focussing on ABBA with Benny and Frida speaking to the press.  Benny gave Frida a back-handed compliment when saying that people don't know what they look like now which was a good thing for him but not quite the case for Frida.  The Bee Gees were asked about the rivalry between ABBA and them.
   
    
6. EyeWitness News
   Broadast: USA
   
    
7. Fuse
   
    
8. Rapport
   Broadcast: Sweden
   
    
9. Kulturnyheterna
   A longer clip (8 minutes) was broadcast on the website of Kulturnyheterna for a month after the event in which Frida and Benny were interviewed by Per Sinding Larsen. In the interview, they  were asked what it meant to ABBA to be elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Frida said that she didn't know what it meant to ABBA as a group, but for her personaly she felt proud and that she always would feel that way about it. Benny said that it probably meant most within the music business and that they are the only non anglo-saxon act that were elected. They also discussed how over the years it appeared that ABBA were and had been appreciated by other artists who no-one thought would like ABBA and that this might have affected the jury. Frida said that she wasn't surprised being elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and that the fact that ABBA still was alive showed how genuine and well-crafted the songs were. Benny said that Mamma Mia! of course had meant a lot to the popularity of ABBA but that it didn't explain it alone; it was, after all, the same songs.
   
    
10. Private footage - some footage was made available on YouTube and I've included a couple here.
     
11. CNN
    Brief footage of various guests including The Bee Gees, Genesis and a short interview with Frida.

Images from all are above. To see which is which, click on the ( i ) on the top-left hand corner of the picture gallery.

The acceptance speeches and the performance of The Winner Takes It All are included in the Time Life box set of ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME Concerts.

Frida: 
"I don’t know if I was supposed to dance there but … I’d rather not! Good evening everybody.
This has been an absolutely fantastic evening, I’m so thrilled and also it’s a very emotional evening, in a way, for me, for us. We haven’t been a group, we haven’t performed or sung together for 28 years. We broke up in ’82 and I never think we will reunite again – it’s a bit too late for that.

I must also say, being a grandmother, I have felt like a teenager tonight! I’ve had such fun and to, it’s like, being at a private rock and roll party you know, to see all your favourites, being inspired by them again. It has been absolutely fantastic, I am so thrilled by this evening. And we are of course very honoured and happy and grateful to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - to be a part of this illustrious group of very talented people, many of them being our inspiration and our role models. And this is kind of beyond all you can ever dream of.

As we haven’t played together for such a long time I actually want to give my thanks to the fellow members in the band - Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha … Agnetha and Bjorn are very sorry they cannot be here tonight but they send their love and they are of course very grateful, very honoured to be a part of this and even if they are not here tonight, they are here in spirit. I spoke to Agnetha today actually because I wanted to hear how she was and how she felt about that and she was very emotional and very proud to be inducted in this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I also want to say thank you to Stikkan - Stikkan Anderson our late manager. He was also called the fifth member of ABBA. He was a great guy and without him I don’t think we would have been where we are today, standing here tonight. (Applause) Thank you. And I’m truly very touched by what once started as partnerships a long time ago and that this has brought us here tonight.

I also wish to say thank you to all our fans, our very loyal fans all around the world. I know some of them are here today. Ones for example have travelled all the way from Australia to be here just for this and to meet us in person. I think this is so moving. I also want to say thank you to one of our biggest fans and that’s my grandson Jonathan sitting over there! He has always loved our music although he’s a heavy metal musician. He loves our music and he loves his grandmother! I’m very proud of you darling, love you!". Benny ...

 

(someone shouts out)
Benny: (in response)
"Hi Gary! You know, this is so absolutely incredible to stand here ... You should know that Sweden is a great country to live in (applause)... but when I grew up in the 50s, well all of us grew up in the '50s in Sweden, we had no radio so therefore we couldn't hear the rhythm and blues and the rock and roll. There was a radio, there was one channel, a public service channel and they would play maybe one hour, two hours of music per day - Whistle While you Work kind of programmes - and they would start with a classical number and then we'd go all through all sorts of music and if we were lucky they would play maybe one popular song at the end of that show, that's what we had. So we were fed up, not fed up, we were fed with Swedish folk music, Italian arias, French chansons, German schmaltz and John Philip Sousa (laughter) and not so bad actually because put that all together and it becomes what you can hear, or some of it, on the ABBA records. So we didn't have any blues like you would call it blues in Sweden, we had some kind of blues because above the 59th, what's it called, the, the, the latitude, the north latitude, from eastern Russia, through Finland into Scandinavia, there's this "melancholy belt", sometimes mistaken for the vodka belt (laughter). And if you live in a country like Sweden with five, six months of snow and the sun disappears totally for like, 2 months, that would be reflected in the work of artists - I believe so. I mean you can, it's definitely in the Swedish folk music, you can hear it in the Russian folk songs, you can hear it in the music from Jean Sibelius or Edvard Grieg from Norway, you could see it in the eyes of Greta Garbo and you can hear it in the voice of Jussi Björling. And er, actually you can hear it in the sound of Frida and Agnetha on some of our songs too - and for those who are observant enough, they might even spot it in the odd Ingmar Bergman movie. 

So - no radio, but there were record shops. So I bought my first record in 1957 - Jailhouse Rock with Elvis Presley (applause) with a great B-side, Treat Me Nice. And from thereon there was really no turning back because .. if it wasn't for those songs by Lieber & Stoller, Goffin-King, The Beach Boys records, Lennon & McCartney, Ray Davis, the Motown catalogue, Joni Mitchell or Chuck Berry or all those others, we would not be here tonight. So I think ABBA is a mix of all this European stuff that we had when we were young kids and also what came after that and you know, I was thinking the other day, just before we came her to New York, that, if all the members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame never existed, what would the world be like then? You can think about that for a while. I think it would be pretty dull. 

So the inspiration that we've had from all those wonderful songwriters and performers combined with this European thing is what made it possible for us in ABBA to reach out with music to the rest of the world in a time when all the pop or rock acts were either American or English and now finally, these songs have brought us all the way into the great Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where all our heroes already are. And for that, and I speak for all four of us - Agnetha, Frida, Björn and myself, I say for that we are deeply, deeply honoured. Thank you."

(referring to the song he's about to play .. ) "You can play some Swedish blues"

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Interviews
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Thanks to contributors to Icethesite.com, Malin Westerberg, Pepé, Ron Miskoff, Kaarin Goodburn, Kevin Evans and Bill Paganucci c/o ABBA Village. Thanks also to Paul Russell, Rudolf Ondrich, Ian Cole, Carl Magnus Palm and Malin Westerberg.
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