Is Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin the complete hard-ass prick he seems to be? Does he occasionally like to tap his inner dancing queen? This just came over the wires:

MOSCOW – An ABBA tribute band says the Kremlin whisked it away to perform a private concert for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Rod Stephen, the founder of British-based group Bjorn Again, says the four-member band traveled 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Moscow for the Jan. 22 gig on the shores of Lake Valdai.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov denies Putin attended any such concert.

Stephen says Putin danced to ABBA hits such as "Dancing Queen" and "Waterloo," accompanied by an unidentified woman and six men in tuxedos.

Stephen told The Associated Press Friday that Putin was heard yelling out "bravo, bravo," and particularly enjoyed renditions of "Mamma Mia" and "Super Trouper."

This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2009.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...