In July 1977, the Sex Pistols embarked upon their first Scandinavian tour, a 12-date trek taking in two shows in Denmark, two shows in Norway, and eight shows in Sweden, culminating in two nights at a Stockholm club called Happy House. The tour gave the London punk quartet an opportunity to do something they were struggling to do on home turf due to their notoriety - play live - and ended up providing bassist Sid Vicious with a career highlight, a meeting with his favourite band, Abba.
In truth, Vicious wasn't the only Abba fan in the Pistols. Famously, Vicious' predecessor Glen Matlock was inspired to write the bass line for Pretty Vacant after hearing Abba's hit single SOS ("I didn't pinch it note for note," he insisted in 2017, "but the structure of that song gave me the idea"), and, according to a Norwegian journalist who covered the quartet's July tour, the band listened to nothing but the Swedish band: "They had one cassette and it was ABBA," she recalled. "They played it 24/7, all the time."
That the Pistols ended up meeting Abba at an airport in Sweden was sheer coincidence, however.
