My name is Thor Sven Erik Liebstaedter. My family of German Jewish origin emigrated toThe Netherlands before the Second World War and that's where I was born on August 19, 1963. At the age of three, not knowing my father, I followed my mother to Belgium for her work.
In 2004, I followed my wife in Valencia, Spain, where she was born and I still live there.
I discovered ABBA, on television, in 1976 with the song "Fernando". Due to their image and their music, I immediately found a connection between ABBA and myself because I felt that was what I needed at that time. But at home, as at school, they all were making fun of them. So I remained isolated but faithful to ABBA.
I'm still mad at my mother for not letting me go to the Abba concert in Antwerp in 1977 but fortunately, I could see them in 1979, in my hometown. This day became the most beautiful in my life until my daughter was born in 1990. Besides having discovered Agnetha, I realized that I was not the only ABBA fan in Belgium !
In 1981, I went to Stockholm for the first time, looking out for Agnetha's and Frida's pre-ABBA records. I was surprised to find out that even there, ABBA was not so well considered!
When I became 20, I made a tour of Europe by train, including a second stop to
Sweden. That's how I went to see all the important places related to ABBA and
met Björn and Benny at the Polar studios.
The same year, I also met Frida, by chance, in Switzerland.
After the ABBA years, I followed without much interest the solo careers of Agnetha and Frida while "Chess" and "Kristina" went unnoticed to me. It is only in 1992, with the ABBA revival that I learned about the fan-club and then Internet. The same year, I built my first database on ABBA.
In 1999, I made my third trip to Sweden to see ABBA The Exibition at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm.
In 2004, while I was studying Spanish and browsing on the Internet, I discovered the "Super Troupers" chat room and heard about how difficult it was to find Agnetha's album in South America. That's how came the idea to create my first site, including a first album.
Today, I am married with two children and my job is that of a consultant in Data processing. When I am not too busy with any of these three occupations, I can expand my hobby around my love for ABBA and thanks to my Internet website and my MundoABBA FaceBook Page, I keep on knowing new people and music connected to ABBA.
The Fan Club introduced me to the ABBADay in Roosendaal and its ABBA second-hand market. I took the opportunity to first create CDs and then DVDs with hard-to-find content. Since 2014, I also make three DVDs annually with ABBA-related content from the past year.
From 2014 to 2018, I spent four years for professional reasons in Al Hoceima, in Morocco, where I enjoyed nature and a pleasant life without giving up any of my activities regarding ABBA.
In 2011, I participated in the beginnings of the MundoABBA podcast created by Gustavo. We have been airing a podcast each Saturday, until 2014, when Universal Music shut down our Facebook page and deleted all our saved podcasts. This did not please Gustavo who left MundoABBA. I created a new podcast and a new Facebook page that I continue to manage until today with a few collaborators.
Since 2013, I use to go to Sweden, to the ABBA Museum and to the concerts of the Benny Anderssons Orkester which are always a big party that I don't want to miss anymore.
Today, I have decided to gradually give up my website which is becoming too heavy to manage and replace it with a blog where you will find most of the information, in a chronological order, in the ABBA history.
Erik Liebstaedter, February 2022.
My Colection of Albums from ABBA Familly and The Albums Wanteds
