Sunday 29 January 2023

Having the time of your life

"Whatever sorcery this is, it works – and then some." - NME

Wow. There are few words that can adequately sum up the spectacle that is ABBA Voyage...

Housed in its own (flat-pack; easily transportable to another location) purpose-built 3000-capacity arena at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, it has sold out to full capacity practically every night since opening in May 2022. And for very good reason.

Despite the band officially splitting up forty years beforehand, the popularity of ABBA continued unabated in the intervening decades - boosted by their songs being featured in films such as Muriel's Wedding, the continued strong sales for their Greatest Hits album, and (of course) the popularity of the Mamma Mia behemoth. I've said many times, love 'em or loathe 'em, everyone knows the words to all of their hits! And hits galore there were on Friday night, when John-John, Madam Arcati and I went along to see the show.

The air crackled with excitement around the arena (tiered seating and "dancefloor" standing-room alike), as (after one of several animated sequences that serve to break up the evening's "live" segments) the unmistakably dramatic opening bars of The Visitors boomed from the 291 speakers - and rising through the floor came the "Fab Four" themselves!

At this point, my heart almost stopped - there they were indeed, hair swishing, costumes sparkling, youthful and at the peak of their powers. Suspension of disbelief is an oft-used cliché, but in this case it truly fits. Everything is believable; the band's interactions, the dancing, the smiles, the hugs, the flirting, their sheer charm (even the hairs on Benny's arms) are all there to see, clear as day. Yet these are merely the product of an amazing trompe-l'œil, courtesy of the brilliance of CGI specialists Industrial Light and Magic (the brains behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe) - the result of a painstaking process of motion capture photography using 120 cameras and hours of dedication from Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida (each of them now in their 70s) - to convince us all that we had been transported back to 1979, watching them perform on stage.

"I was left with no idea what was real and what was not. This bears overstating: I literally could not believe my eyes." - The Standard

And what a performance! They crammed in hit after hit - "performing" SOS, Chiquitita, Fernando, Mamma Mia, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) "live", accompanied by their excellent real-life backing band (who had their own chance to shine, with an energetic rendition of Does Your Mother Know?). Knowing Me, Knowing You and Lay All Your Love on Me were projected, video-style, on the 65ft-tall screens that stretched as a panorama all around the walls (and on opaque giant discs suspended over the audience), and Eagle and Voulez Vous served as backing music for the continuing animated segments - hilariously explained away by "Bjorn" as "breaks for costume changes". [Each member of the band had a turn at addressing the audience, segments that just added to the hyper-realism of the experience.]

Adding to the theatrics, of course, was the extravagant and brilliant light-show - from hundreds of pin-spotlights dancing across the audience, to the spinning mirrors reflecting laser-beams, to the neon-lit stage and the climactic multi-coloured dancing rope-lights over our heads and across the entire room.


"...the most enduring pleasure of the whole endeavour is exactly how uncheesy Voyage is; how it is not a Madame Tussauds with go-faster stripes." - The Guardian

It wouldn't be an "ABBA concert" if they didn't take time to slow things down a little, and they cleverly segued the classic When All Is Said And Done into the two hits from their "reunion" album from last year (also called Voyage), Don't Shut Me Down and I Still Have Faith in You - which was in itself a bit of a mindfuck, for here was the "1979 ABBA" singing songs from decades later - before having a bit of a laugh and a joke about their 1974 Eurovision Song Contest winning appearance [at which, notoriously, the UK jury gave them nul points], with a projection of that very performance of Waterloo on opaque screens above the stage.

The audience, including us, was unanimously on its feet by this stage (of course) and, with a rousing sing-along on Thank You For The Music, it was inevitable that the finale would be that eternal crowd-pleaser Dancing Queen!

Of course, with the audience in a state of near hysteria, and the deafening applause, there had to be an encore - The Winner Takes It All. Then, as the youthful ABBA departed the stage came the biggest surprise of all - as the Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid of today took to the stage to thank the audience and take a bow!! Or did they..? [Nope. They, too, were CGI "ABBA-tars".]

It was one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. A once-in-a-lifetime experience, indeed...

ABBAVoyage.com

[click any pic to embiggen - for the full-size versions right-click and "open image in new tab"]

20 comments:

  1. Everybody I know that has seen this has not had a bad thing to say about the show yet. And to my knowledge this is the first show to use such technology to the extremes that they did. And what a better group to start this , then Abba? I can't imagine where a concert like this goes from here? Course if I ever see this, I am definitely have to bring my smelling salts. I'm sure good friend and blogger Anne Marie must be rolling her grave .over this concert. And the building itself is a marvel if you ask me

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    1. ABBA spent millions creating this show, and it is the first time any of this technology has been used in such a way. Breath-taking, really.

      You probably will need those smelling salts... Jx

      PS Even Anne Marie would have been caught up in the atmosphere - it was contagious!

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  2. Nice photo of you and Missus but I was expecting ponchos.

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    1. ...rather than the unfortunate impression of an "overbite"... Jx

      PS It was too cold for any kind of crocheted ponchos with all those holes in!

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  3. p.s. What defunct bands/performers would YOU bring back in this way?

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    1. The Dooleys. Jx

      PS ...although I doubt they'd manage to afford more special 3D effects than a View-Master, passed around in a Wetherspoons.

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  4. For Abba people that must have been a terrific blast from the past. And our Canadian friend asks "who would we bring back, using this hi-tech?" Hmm....this will require some serious brain time...

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    1. The trouble with that idea is that all four members of ABBA are alive, and were willing and able to spend weeks with the CGI crew to capture their movements and facial tics to perfection in order to create their younger versions.

      Thus, for the obvious candidates like the Rolling Stones, Queen or The Beatles, this would be impossible as key members are dead. My best guess for who might consider doing this would be Queen Madge.

      For anyone, however, it would be a multi-million-dollar gamble - Voyage cost $175 million (£140 million) to stage, and ABBA need to cover that cost from ticket and merchandise sales alone... Jx

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  5. I reckon they could reanimate Freddie - the technology will improve that they'll be able to work something out from film footage - wouldn't it be lovely to see Freddie again?!
    Meanwhile, the Abba concert looks superb! You lucky thing!! Terrific! And great photo up top!
    Sx

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    1. You would more likely end up with one of these!

      It is a terrific show - I am sure you'd love it. Jx

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  6. How marvelous. I adore them, but... I only wish their last album demanded all this. Kizzes.

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    1. It was a sterling effort, but being as it was forty years since they last made music together it could hardly be expected that they'd have produced an other Arrival, ABBA: The Album or The Visitors...

      ...the ABBA Voyage show, on the other hand, was a peak performance! Jx

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  7. Mamma Mia There is little I can add you have covered it all.
    It was Abba-tastic When All Is Said And Done.
    and this Dancing Queen would like to thank John-John
    ' So I say
    Thank you for the music, for giving it to me'

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    1. I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do so agree with you! Such a generous combined Xmas/birthday(s) present from John-John - those tickets must have cost a bit of Money Money Money, but I guess that's The Name Of The Game where (even virtual) concert tickets go these days. We had such a ball, The Way Old Friends Do!

      As for the blog post, well Knowing Me Knowing You, it's the best I can do. Jx

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    2. You pair are an ABBA-tastic force to be reckoned with!

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    3. Don't go wasting your emotion. Lay all your love on me! Jx

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  8. Good write up, I saw it Monday and loved it
    With 3000 best buddies

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    1. It's amazing just how many people adore ABBA to the degree that this is a sell-out night after night after night. So glad you enjoyed it as much as we did! Jx

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