STOCKHOLM — In one of the longest awaited
musical reunions, Swedish pop legends ABBA return to the concert stage on
Friday in
London but only as avatars of their 1970 selves shimmering with shiny
costumes, glitter and platform boots.
اضافة اعلان
While fans will hear the quartet’s real voices, the
band will not be on stage. Concert-goers will see “ABBAtars” projected as
holograms, looking like they did at the peak of their fame.
“We put our hearts and souls into these avatars and
they will take over now,” 77-year-old band member Bjorn Ulvaeus told AFP in an
interview in Stockholm ahead of the premiere.
Fans will once again be able to see
Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — whose first
initials form the name ABBA — perform hits from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as
their recent comeback album, at the “ABBA Voyage” show in London.
The group announced the reunion in September last
year, dropping the new singles “I still have faith in you” and “Don’t shut me
down”.
They then released the 10-track album “Voyage” two
months later and announced plans for the high-tech concert at a specially-built
London arena.
Other attempts at concert holograms have received
lukewarm reviews, but the group hopes fans will feel they’re seeing the real
deal.
“This is one of the most daring projects that anyone
has done in the music industry ever,” said Ulvaeus, who wrote most of the
group’s biggest hits with Benny Andersson.
“How it will be received by the audience, I don’t
have a clue,” he said.
“But I think that they will feel an emotional pull
from the avatars, they will see the avatars as real people.”
In addition to re-recording their songs for the
show, the quartet also spent hours in a studio dressed in leotards, having
their movements digitally recorded to reproduce them on stage.
The avatars will appear in the band’s kitsch 1970s
outfits and are also expected to don futuristic get-ups, according to trailers.
The show will run seven days a week until early
October in the purpose-built theatre ABBA Arena in east London.
“I don’t know about the others but, me, myself, I
felt more nervous a month ago than I do now,” Ulvaeus said, adding: “I know
that we have done our utmost.”
The holograms are the product of a years-long
project, designed in partnership with a special effects company founded by Star
Wars creator George Lucas.
The concert was recorded using 160 cameras and five
weeks of performances.
For Ulvaeus, who is also setting up a circus musical
in
Stockholm about Pippi Longstocking, the main character in an eponymous
series of children’s books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, the overwhelming
amount of archival ABBA footage means it is not strange to see his
40-year-younger self on stage.
“For most people, it will be weird perhaps, but I
have seen my younger self almost daily, all my life. Ever since we broke up, in
some form or other, in some pictures somewhere.”
“So I am kind of used to ‘him.’”
ABBA broke onto the international scene in 1974 when
they won the Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo”, powered by a flood of
British votes.
They went on to record a string of hits, including “Gimme!
Gimme! Gimme!”, “Dancing Queen” and “The Winner Takes it All”, before breaking
up in 1982.
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