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A12 PEOPLE & ARTS
Saturday 28 May 2022

Stars and royalty watch ABBA’s return

in digital stage show

live performance, though
when the backing singers
stepped forward to belt
out “Does Your Mother
Know,” a surge of live-mu-
sic energy shot through the
arena. The four band mem-
bers two married couples
during ABBA’s heyday,
though now long divorced
got a rapturous ovation
when they took a bow at
the end of Thursday’s show,
50 years after they formed
ABBA, and 40 years after
Members of ABBA, from left, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, they stopped performing
Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson arrive for the ABBA
Voyage concert at the ABBA Arena in London, Thursday May live.
26, 2022. Watching one’s younger
Associated Press self perform must be a
strange sensation, but the
By JILL LAWLESS are the real Agnetha Faltsk- band members, now in
Associated Press og, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny their 70s, said they were de-
LONDON (AP) — “ABBA Andersson and Anni-Frid lighted by the show.
Voyage” is certainly a trip. Lyngstad choreographed “I never knew I had such
Four decades after the by Britain’s Wayne Mc- amazing moves,” Ulvaeus
Swedish pop supergroup Gregor but the perform- said.
last performed live, audi- ers onstage are digital Lyngstad agreed: “I
ences can once again avatars, inevitably dubbed thought I was quite good,
see ABBA onstage in an “ABBA-tars.” In unsettlingly but I’m even better.”
innovative digital concert realistic detail, they de- Ulvaeus said the audience
where past and future col- pict the band members as reaction was the most
lide. The show opens to the they looked in their 1970s gratifying part of the expe-
public in London on Friday, heyday beards on the rience. “There’s an emo-
the day after a red-carpet men, flowing locks on the tional connection between
premiere attended by su- women, velour pantsuits all the avatars and the audi-
perfans, celebrities and around. ence,” he said. “That’s the
Sweden’s King Carl XVI The result is both high tech fantastic thing.”
Gustaf and Queen Silvia. and high camp, a glittery Producers bill the show as
The guests of honor were supernova of stupefying “revolutionary.” Time will
pop royalty the four mem- technology, 1970s nostal- tell. Like the first audiences
bers of ABBA, appearing in gia and pop music genius. to watch a talking motion
public together for the first For many in the audience, picture a century ago, at-
time in years. it was almost like being tak- tendees may leave won-
They were in the audi- en back in time to watch dering whether they are
ence, though. Onstage at ABBA perform classics in- watching a gimmick, or the
the specially built 3,000- cluding “Mamma Mia,” future. The Times of London
seat ABBA Arena next to “Knowing Me, Knowing reviewer Will Hodgkinson
east London’s Olympic You,” “SOS” and “Danc- judged the show “essen-
Park were a 10-piece live ing Queen.” The peppy tially an ABBA singalong
backing band and a digi- 90-minute set also includes with added sound and light
tal ABBA, created using tracks from “Voyage,” the show,” though he called
motion capture and other reunion album the band the effect “captivating.”
technology by Industrial released last year. Writing in The Guardian,
Light and Magic, the spe- It’s a fusion of tribute act Alexis Petridis called the
cial effects firm founded and 3D concert movie that concert “jaw-dropping”
by “Star Wars” director transcends that descrip- and said “it’s so successful
George Lucas. tion. At times it was pos- that it’s hard not to imagine
The voices and movements sible to forget this wasn’t a other artists following suit.”
Gimmick or genius, “ABBA
Voyage” is booking in Lon-
don until May 2023, with a
world tour planned after
that.
The fans who attended
Thursday’s show are just
delighted ABBA is back.
“I’m so excited,” said Kristi-
na Hagman, a Swede who
has been a fan since the
1970s.q