Mark Sutherland “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 Swedish quartet’s first “concert” in over 40 years.
And if that sounds like a curiously existential way to begin a pop concert, well, this is no ordinary live show.For a start, despite Andersson’s insistence that “This is really me, I just look very good for my age,” it’s actually his de-aged, computer-generated avatar — or “ABBA-tar,” if you must — that is speaking his pre-recorded words.
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.
Meet, then, the prefab four, playing a show that is billed, 100% accurately, as “a concert like no other” — which doesn’t mean it isn’t every bit as big a deal as it would have been had ABBA reformed for a more traditional concert.Staged in the purpose-built ABBA Arena near East London’s Olympic Park, the world premiere performance nonetheless attracted royalty of both the showbiz world (Kylie Minogue, Keira Knightley, Kate Moss) and actual sovereign variety: the King and (dancing) Queen of Sweden walked the red carpet in support of one of their nation’s leading exports.However, it was the presence of all four real-life members of ABBA — Andersson, co-founder Björn Ulvaeus, and lead singers Anni-Frid Lyngstad and the usually reclusive Agnetha Fältskog — that caused the real stir, proof of the demand fueling this technologically ground-breaking (and presumably wildly expensive) new concept in entertainment.The stakes, therefore, are high.
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