The virtual digital concert featuring 3D renderings of Swedish pop legends ABBA [Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad] is a concert unlike any other.
While I was London last week, I was given the opportunity to witness the music spectacle first hand.
I have to state from the outset that these ABBA-tars, as they have become known, are not holograms.
They are instead digital versions of ABBA that were created in collaboration with video effects company, Industrial Light & Magic — the team behind the original Star Wars film among others — that involved each member of ABBA being motion-captured over the course of five weeks back in 2020.
Altogether, a team of around 850 people took several years to finally bring this project to fruition which led to its opening in May, 2022.
Along with the cutting-edge lighting and audio technology, the concert also incorporates a 10-piece live band featuring some of Britain’s finest musicians, that play live throughout the concert.
This all happens in a purposely-built 3000 capacity ABBA Arena located opposite the Pudding Mill Lane light rail station in East London.
The scope of the sound and vision of the concert involves 291 speakers, and over 500 moving lights that are mapped to 30,000 points in the arena in order to create a totally immersive 360 live concert experience.
And what an experience that is.
From the moment you enter the arena until the last note is sounded, it’s an experience like nothing you’ve ever encountered before.
If you never witnessed the group live in their heyday during the ’70s, then this concert transports you to ABBA in their prime and live in concert in the year 1979 in all shape, form and sound.
What’s apparent is the moment the four members hit the stage among a swathe of lights and sound, how uncannily realistic they all are.
Each ABBA-tar even casts a shadow.
It causes you to have a suspension of belief as what you’re hearing and seeing suddenly erases the boundaries between the digital world and the physical world.
It’s state-of-the-art technology of the highest order.
A remarkable and groundbreaking achievement.
At exactly 7.45pm, an ethereal backdrop image of a winter forest scene sets up a Swedish mood centre stage as the sounds of Benny Andersson’s Skallgång instrumental echoes across the arena before seguing into the first notes of The Visitors which kicks off proceedings as the foursome all slowly appear rising from beneath the stage to the loud applause of the audience.
An energetic and rousing Hole In The Soul quickly sets the pace before a crowd-pleasing greatest hits set list is ushered into full force.
Interestedly interspersed among the well-known hits are two numbers Don’t Shut Me Down and I Still Have Faith In You from the group’s final and most recent studio album 2021’s Voyage, which itself appeared more than 40 years after the group split in 1982.
It’s a nice and welcomed addition to the set, and really brings everything up to the present day.
The proof of ABBA’s enduring timeless quality is underscored by the mix of generations present in the audience, both young and old, and with some in fancy dress paying homage to the group’s identifiable fashion statements over the years.
And audience members came from all parts of the globe, too.
The 100-minute show runs through numbers such as SOS, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Chiquitita, Fernando, The Name of the Game, Money, Money, Money, Take A Chance On Me, Lay All Your Love On Me, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’, and of course, Mamma Mia, all of which get the audience all singing along and off their seats dancing.
That realistic element gets further emphasis when each ABBA member at various points of the show personally addresses the audience.
At one point, Björn thanks the live band and introduces them to the audience and directs the spotlight over to them where they perform ABBA’s Does Your Mother Know.
This realistic bent is given further credence with time within the show given over for costumes changes, alluding to the group now back stage in their wardrobe department.
When this occurs on two occasions during the show, during Eagle, and again later for Voulez-Vous animated videos are aired further highlighting the authenticity to the concert.
When it comes to their Eurovision winning song, Waterloo, a montage of the group’s winning performance at Brighton is instead aired across the arena’s huge screens.
The finale Dancing Queen sees all up and dancing on the floor, before encore The Winner Takes It All closes the evening in breath-taking style.
But there is a surprise. Soon after its completion all four members appear on stage as they are today, again in a 3D rendering of themselves.
Some fans I talked to informed me they had been to the show multiple times, one even stated it was her 49th time.
And seeing the show first-hand you can understand why.
If you’re an ABBA fan, this is a must see. And if you’re not an ABBA fan, it’s highly recommended you do go see it.
It’s guaranteed to turn you into a fan.
Voyage is a dazzling master stroke. A concert like no other. Innovative. Surreal.
Mind blowingly brilliant.
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Fun fact
Due to its $40 million insurance value, the violin that once belonged to 19th-century Italian virtuoso Niccolo Paganini, is kept in a guarded vault in Genoa’s city hall.
But In 2001, American jazz violinist Regina Carter played a concert in Genoa using the treasured instrument and subsequently recorded on the instrument for the album Paganini: After a Dream.
Her performance outraged many classical music purists.
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