The ABBA Voyage Experience: “What are we without songs and dances?”
After half a century of unforgettable hits and a quarter of a century of sold-out theater performances, ABBA enters the realm of holograms in the third year of its career with the London ABBA Voyage.
Watch: Teaser trailer for ABBA Voyage
How can you not love ABBA? There’s a reason they’ve sold more records than anyone else, that music, the songs, my kids love ABBA!
– Dave Grohl to Anderson Cooper, CNN, 2012
I I find myself in a London pub for the first time; a football match between Germany and Spain is playing on the screen, while purple wigs and silver chrome overalls flash into the picture.
A DJ plays singalongs and boozy renditions of ’70s classics – “Islands in the Stream,” “December ’63,” “We Are Family.” Carefully recreated costumes, disco collars and chrome platform boots show that we’re all here for the same reason: ABBA is getting back together tonight.
A little star; ABBA meets several times a week in a purpose-built stadium in southwest London. None of the members are physically present.
This is ABBA Voyage.
In 2022, George Lucas’ ILM Studios teamed up with Agnetha Faltskogg, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaes and Anni-Frid Lyngstadd to create “the ABBA-tars.” Using the CGI motion capture technology that created Gollum and Peter Jackson’s Avatar films, the former ABBA members spent weeks in skin-tight suits covered in ping pong balls, miming to a selection of their biggest hits, deep cuts and several new tracks for the reunion album of the same name. ABBA trip. This was the latest in a series of efforts that inspired an alternative title for this article: “Help, I drank too much wine and now ABBA’s physical forms are being resurrected as 3D avatars anchored in time.”
ABBA, one of the most successful bands of the 1970s, originally consisted of two couples who divorced in real life and stopped performing live altogether in 1983 because they no longer had the desire to continue.
But with the advent of multi-billion dollar Mama Mia Throughout global film and music history, the band’s nostalgic outfit sparked a sort of retreat in their heyday. Andersson and Ulvaeus helped arrange their compositions for the stage, and all four attended the film premiere of Mamma Mia. Then the inevitable happened: in 2016, the band celebrated the 50th anniversary of their songwriting genesis in Stockholm with an unannounced reunion performance of “Me and I.” To date, it is ABBA’s last physical performance. This relaxation seems to have paved the way for a reunion album and accompanying concert experience in London.
We are led into a large dome with neon walkways as a Swedish voice – Benny or Björn – announces 15 minutes until the show. Dozens of fairy lights hang from the ceiling and perforated circular lighting fixtures hang above the crowd. On stage, a forest is projected onto three large screens. A large trapezoidal dance pit for standing room guests is flush with the stage.
I am sitting in the middle right in the back row. In addition to costumes and wigs that come directly from the ABBA repertoire, several spectators are in Tron-style overalls with fluorescent orange piping. This is a multi-generational affair – young families, people in their twenties and thirties (the Mama Mia cinema-goers) and those who may have seen ABBA in their heyday. Two shows a day are packed. A blaring Gregorian chant fades away before we are asked not to film anything “to preserve the secret of ABBA Voyage”. In that sense, the veil on the evening’s events is only partially lifted; the purpose-built ABBA Voyage arena, originally scheduled to run from 2022 to summer 2024, has been extended to 2026.
The setlist for ABBA Voyage is rigid – the band members spent several weeks in 2021 making special motion capture recordings – and to my ears, some of the vocal production sounded more modern, likely from those sessions. Each hologram has a “solo spot” with pre-recorded dialogue introducing a song and expressing gratitude for our presence. There are several presentation workarounds – for “Eagle” and “Voulez-Vous,” we follow the animated adventures of a young warrior heroine in a style reminiscent of recent Spider-Vers And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movies. The live band that plays the accompanying tracks, a flawless studio band, gets a vocal showcase on “Does Your Mother Know,” in a gender swap that cleverly uses the tune’s revised perspective from Mama MiaOtherwise, the ABBAtars – and the CGI models from ILM – are the focus.
So, the burning question: How effective is the effect?
From a purely visual perspective, the illusion of ABBA Voyage works best when the slightly oversized band performs in a four-piece formation (in the “BAAB” or “post-divorce” arrangement, as Twitter has pointed out) in partial shade. First and foremost, the models themselves are exact replicas, scanned and artificially rejuvenated directly from the modern members. The laser light installations and the relentless dance party atmosphere leave little opportunity for the audience to engage with any peculiarities. Each costume is carefully recreated and shimmers, sparkles and flows accordingly in medium-length shots of the band in motion.
The limitations of this technology, however, become particularly clear when the huge rejuvenated faces of the ABBA models are projected onto the screens next to the main stage without dramatic lighting. The lip-syncing occasionally treads the uncanny valley (see: Motion capture films like The Polar Express). Only one number definitely pushes the limits of the technology – “Lay All Your Love on Me” contains contortions that would not be out of place in an anime and the effect is a little dizzying.
Now the follow-up question: Does that make ABBA Voyage any less moving?
Once the lights dim, it’s all up and down. ABBA are four living, working individuals who have decided not to tour and instead present a recreation of their heyday. Each member has willingly recorded their parts for this and the accompanying reunion album, and throughout the evening they provide insights and jokes in the form of their hologram selves. After about three songs, the whole experience becomes so intense and nostalgic that most reservations disappear. Everyone stands up, singing along to every word, and tears well up as they remember where they first heard these songs. The ABBA catalogue is indelible.
I have to fight back tears several times. These are not the real singers of the songs I learned as a six-year-old, singing along with my sister in the back seat of the family Toyota Avalon. And yet my father, two seats to my right, sings along, as does my mother. The woman to my left, who has otherwise sat there in silent gratitude the whole evening, hears the piano playing at the beginning of “Thank You For the Music.” Without moving, she sings every word in a beautiful voice. And the tears begin to flow.
“So I say thank you for the music,
the songs I sing
Thank you for all the joy you bring
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
What are we without a song or a dance?
So I say thank you for the music,
for giving it to me”
There are several musical and visual surprises planned for the evening, but I don’t want to give them away here. After all, I have to do my part to “keep the secret of ABBA Voyage”. I owe them that much at least.
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Stream: “Thank You for the Music” – ABBA
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© Aidan Moyer
