ABBA

Agnetha, Frida, Benny and Bjorn reunited for the opening night of the concert, which features digital versions of the band. Frida watched the show with a wide ...

"Being able to be on stage and perform for an hour or two, while being home walking the dog or making a carbonara? "And the absolute highlight was that they came on stage at the end." The show, which takes place in a purpose-built arena in east London, is currently due to run until December 2022. We were intrigued by that," Benny Andersson told the BBC last year. The band perform Chiquitita against an eclipsing sun, and are surrounded by pulsing laser beams during Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight). - The Visitors (One more look and you forget everything, to coin a phrase.) "I just look very good for my age." "So if you come out of here and feel like you've seen a visual spectacle, we will have failed. "I cried four times. "I don't think any hologram shows have been successful," producer Baillie Walsh told Dazed magazine last year. I didn't know I was going to feel like that."

For me it was about capturing the essence of ABBA and sort of like fast-forwarding it in time,” says costume designer Bea Åkerlund.

Åkerlund has been working on the project since 2019, which is when she first got a call from the Emmy Award winning director Johan Renck. “I’ve done some other big Swedish iconic brands and I thought, of course ABBA would be the ultimate Swedish icon pop stars to work for,” she said on a Zoom call. The band will not be wearing the flared-leg jeans, clogs, or cat dresses they favored in the Me Decade. Bea Åkerlund, a fellow Swede, well-known for working with musicians, was engaged as the costume designer. This Voyage concert, which will be performed in residency a custom-built arena in London, is big, big news not only because ABBA, one of the best-selling acts of all time, had been dormant for 40 years until returning in 2021 with an album, also called Voyage, but because this newfangled concert will attempt to bridge the digital and physical worlds with light, sound, and “ABBAtars”—not holograms—using performance capture that’s combined with archival footage.

Members of ABBA, from left, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson arrive for the ABBA Voyage concert at the ABBA Arena in ...

Producers bill the show as “revolutionary.” Time will tell. “That’s the fantastic thing.” "But now we are taking revenge.” They were in the audience, though. It's a fusion of tribute act and 3D concert movie that transcends that description. LONDON (AP) — “ABBA Voyage” is certainly a trip.

All four members of ABBA reunited in public Thursday night for the first time in 36 years as they attended the opening night of their ABBA Voyage concert ...

“It’s about realizing that it’s inconceivable to be where we are,” Ulvaeus said while promoting the album last fall. The Swedish pop group was formed in 1972 and broke up in 1982 after eight studio albums. In 2017, the foursome reunited to produce their most recent album, 2021’s “Voyage,” which was supported by singles “I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down.”

We would like to hear your thoughts about Abba's new concerts in which the band performs via digital avatars.

You can get in touch by filling in the form below. How do you feel about the return of the band? “By the time the show hits its finale with Thank You for the Music followed by Dancing Queen, any lingering sense that you’re not actually in the presence of Abba has dissolved.”

Lifelike 'Abbatars' take showbiz illusionism to new heights with virtual concert in London.

The iconic pop group, Agnetha Faltskog, 72, Benny Andersson, 75, Bjorn Ulvaeus, 77, and Anni-Frid 'Frida' Lyngstad, 76, opened their long-awaited digital ...

The Swedish superstars — or digital versions of them, at least — performed on Thursday to 3000 enthusiastic fans with the help of 140 animators, ...

Ulvaeus said he wouldn’t be surprised if some of the group’s contemporaries consider a similar undertaking: “If they ask me for advice, of course, I would say, ‘It takes a long time and it’s very expensive.’” “I felt very emotional at certain times during that performance, which I’m calling a performance but it wasn’t — it was a projection,” he said. “I was scared what I would find underneath,” Ulvaeus said.) Lyngstad had just had hip surgery and was using a cane. The group needed to get creative because Faltskog and Lyngstad had made it clear that they didn’t “want to go on the road,” Andersson told The New York Times in 2021. Around 2016, Simon Fuller, the producer behind the “Idol” franchise and the Spice Girls, suggested a show starring a 3-D version of the group “singing” while backed by a live band. The idea started around 2014, Gisla said, when she was brought in to help make music videos for the band involving digital avatars, a process that was “a total nightmare,” she said. During test shoots in fall 2019, the group’s male members “leapt in with no qualms,” Ben Morris, I.L.M.’s creative director, said. “We kissed a lot of frogs,” Gisla said. For the stadium disco of “ Summer Night City,” it appeared in pyramids made of dazzling light, with the rings of Saturn twirling in the background. For the Spanish-tinged “ Chiquitita,” the group sang in front of a solar eclipse. As a synthesizer blared and lights pulsed, the singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad twirled her arms skyward, unveiling a huge cape decorated with gold and fire red feathers, while she sang the slow-burn disco of “ The Visitors.” Benny Andersson, poised at his synth, grinned like he couldn’t believe he was onstage again. The audience — some already out of their seats dancing, glasses of rosé prosecco in hand — laughed because the comment went straight to the heart of the event.

The four members of ABBA made a rare public appearance at the premiere of their virtual live concert ABBA Voyage in London on Thursday.

There are also playful nods to the digital artifice on display with the four characters routinely joking about how good they look for their age or pretending to struggle to get into their costumes. It’s a safe assumption that the set list will change over time with new songs dropped into the production at regular intervals throughout its run to encourage repeat visits. ABBA Voyage represents a seismic leap forward in terms of technology and sheer scale to sit at the cutting edge of what virtual concerts can now deliver. At other times, the four musicians are shown in photo realistic close up on the large screens that loom over the dance floor and surrounding seats. “To be or not to be,” wise cracks Benny’s avatar during the show “That is no longer the question.” ABBA Voyage makes those words a reality Body doubles were also used in the motion capture process to give the digital band – represented in their late 1970s prime, complete with glitzy sequinned costumes and winged catsuit costumes designed by B Åkerlund and Dolce & Gabbana — a more youthful energy.

The iconic pop group, Agnetha Faltskog, 72, Benny Andersson, 75, Bjorn Ulvaeus, 77, and Anni-Frid 'Frida' Lyngstad, 76, opened their long-awaited digital ...

“To be or not to be, that is no longer the question,” declared ABBA co-founder and musical mastermind Benny Andersson at the start of “ABBA Voyage,” the ...

After a slow-ish start with the lesser-known songs “The Visitors” and “Hole in Your Soul,” the set delivers the hits just like any ABBA tribute act. But any quibbles are drowned out by a youthful, 10 piece live band — put together by Keira Knightley’s husband, James Righton, formerly of “new rave” sensations the Klaxons — that means “S.O.S” and “Does Your Mother Know?” have rarely sounded so punchy. However, some notable classics, from “Super Trouper” to “Money, Money, Money” and “Take a Chance on Me,” are absent — smart money is surely on versions of these already being in the can for future setlist tweaks. And these avatars certainly capture ABBA’s original exuberance, minus the Jurassic tendencies that tend to blight decades-after-the-fact reunions in the real world. But then, just as when you saw the initially-somewhat-unconvincing dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park” for the first time, your eyes adjust, the willing suspension of disbelief kicks in, and they begin to feel like living, breathing musicians, rather than the product of 160 motion capture cameras and one billion computing hours by Industrial Light & Magic. Alongside him are the similarly CGI-rendered forms of his bandmates, all looking as they did — or, in truth, actually somewhat better than — they did in their ‘70s heyday.

Members of ABBA, from left, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson arrive for the ABBA Voyage concert at the ABBA Arena in ...

Producers bill the show as “revolutionary.” Time will tell. “That’s the fantastic thing.” "But now we are taking revenge.” They were in the audience, though. It's a fusion of tribute act and 3D concert movie that transcends that description. LONDON (AP) — “ABBA Voyage” is certainly a trip.

Abba are said to need £140 million to cover the costs of their hologram concerts after splashing out on 'Abba-tars' made by George Lucas' special effects ...

Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus were all smiles before entering the ABBA Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park ...

"There’s an emotional connection between the avatars and the audience," he said. With the help of motion-capture technology, fans enjoyed their beloved hits, such as "Mamma Mia," "SOS," "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and "Dancing Queen," just to name a few. The concert series supports ABBA’s studio album "Voyage," the band's first release in 40 years.

Four decades after the Swedish pop supergroup last performed live, ABBA devotees are taking to the stage once again in an innovative, entirely digital ...

ABBA Voyage is both a hybrid of VR experience and 3D concert movie that allows the group to perform in their prime, turning back the clock to their 1970s heyday. The music ABBA gave us for the past 50+ years was a gift. knowing this might be the last abba reunion makes a knot in my stomach.

The iconic pop group, Agnetha Faltskog, 72, Benny Andersson, 75, Bjorn Ulvaeus, 77, and Anni-Frid 'Frida' Lyngstad, 76, opened their long-awaited digital ...