abba voyage technology

ABBA Voyage: How does it work?

Best of 2022: ABBA's reappearance on stage has garnered rave reviews. But how exactly do you convincingly put on a gig from a band that isn't there?

Join us for our traditional look back at the stories and features that hit the spot in 2022

Best of 2022 : It’s incredible but true. ABBA's return to ‘live’ performance has been deemed a huge success by early critics and the whole unlikely (and costly, and years in the making) venture looks like it will be a success.

Just to stress at this point, the world of live shows and musical theatre is anything but a sure thing. High-profile productions are fraught with danger and for every smash hit that just ‘runs and runs’ there are many more costly and embarrassing failures . 

But ABBA’s team appear to have done the impossible - created a hi-tech ‘virtual show’ that pleases crowds but doesn’t actually feature the band themselves, and which has attracted raves from critics and early audiences alike.

And with ABBA not even in the building during the performance – apart from the debut press performance of course – it’s quite possible that this show could run for years. Decades… centuries even… long after the real artists have left us, setting a precedent for countless ‘virtual’ shows to come from artists both currently living and long since departed.

Does your mother know?

So how did they do it? Well, it’s very clever but at its heart pretty simple.

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Yes, there’s all the donning of ‘mocap’ suits to ensure that the virtual band moves like the real thing; yes, there’s all the thousands of hours animating realistic computer graphic ABBAtars etc. However, the real magic of ABBA Voyage is all about bringing it all into your eyes and ears to convince you that this is a real, live gig happening in front of you.

ABBA Voyage’s big ‘trick’ takes advantage of one of the unfortunate traits of today’s big gigs. No, not poor parking and overpriced hot dogs - we're talking about the fact that nobody actually looks at the tiny obscured figure on the stage, but instead spends the gig watching the huge jumbotron screens either side of it.

The smartest bit of the production – ABBA ‘actually on stage’ (which we’ll come to later) – is actually the one thing you’re most likely not looking at.

Thus – just like a real gig – for 90% of the time you're watching a pre-rendered Avatar-quality animated movie on huge screens in front of you. And off to the side. And behind the stage too.

But what of that centre stage?

You might not know it (yet) but most of today’s big productions for movie and TV take advantage of a technique known as virtual production. This next-level movie magic not only looks better than ‘traditional’ green screening but is faster and easier too. And it’s disappointingly simple to pull off: you basically erect a huge LED screen and project a background onto it while your actors act in front of it. Then you film the lot in the same way that they’ve been making movies for a hundred plus years.

No messing about ‘cutting people out’ and placing them in amongst computer graphics... Just pre-render the whole background in Unreal Engine 5 (the go-to option for videogame graphics) and get your guys to act in front of it.

And – bonus – because the results are ‘in camera’ a little bit of movie magic happens. The results look like the actor is really there, with the background (even if the background is being played from a computer). Your brain no longer needs to glue two things together. They’re there. Already. For real.

ABBA’s Voyage takes this tech to the live arena. And, in the controlled environment of a pitch black, locked down arena tailor made for the event itself, it’s a fairly easy trick to pull off. You’re not looking at a stage. You’re looking at hundreds of square feet of LED walls.

I have a dream

The hardest bit is faking the band ‘on stage’ and it’s here that the show’s makers get away with it… but only just. 

On the screens to the side of the arena the members of ABBA are in full 3D. Cameras sweep past them. They can turn, pass in front of each other, have fully formed sides, backs, tops and [cough] bottoms. But on stage they are a flat 2D image on a 65-million pixel giant LCD.

So the stage is wreathed in real spotlights and strobes but the lighting hitting the figures on stage – perfectly in sync with the real world photon bombardment around them – is simply part of the animation that’s being projected there.

It all looks so real, but would prove flat as a pancake if you were to get up close. Be under no illusion. These aren’t even hi-tech holograms (a tech still very much in its infancy and yet to blast off in any kind of convincing form).

But if ABBA aren’t really there, why not simply have a backing track supply the music too? Perhaps this is the most clever bit. The genius use of real live music helps blur the perception even further.

Thank you for the music

ABBA Voyage’s music is delivered by a live band of ten musicians currently deploying the services of ex-Klaxon turned indie popstar James Righton and on keyboards Victoria Hesketh, better known as electro pop’s Little Boots . 

We say ‘currently’ as – if this show runs for years to come (and there’s absolutely no technical, spiritual or physical reason for it not to) – like ABBA themselves, they might not fancy banging out Dancing Queen in their 70s.

The band are there on stage, off to one side, for perspective, and being as real and as live as any gig you’ve ever seen and this use of thus wobbly old real, live music – albeit tightly playing to strict backing tracks in lockstep with the graphics and lighting exploding all around the arena – just goes that extra step to blurring the edges of the experience.

It sounds live. It looks live. It’s… live? Yes, it is, really. Really good, real music, being played for real on a real stage with really accurately modelled 3D versions of real people. But from then on in, it’s all smoke, mirrors and giant LEDs.

Daniel Griffiths is a veteran journalist who has worked on some of the biggest entertainment, tech and home brands in the world. He's interviewed countless big names, and covered countless new releases in the fields of music, videogames, movies, tech, gadgets, home improvement, self build, interiors and garden design. He’s the ex-Editor of Future Music and ex-Group Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Musician, Guitarist, Guitar World, Computer Music and more. He renovates property and writes for MusicRadar.com.

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ABBA Voyage’s creators tell us how they made the show, and what’s next

Producers, the director and choreographer reveal what went into the ambitious new show

The team behind the creation of the new ABBA Voyage live experience have spoken to NME about how it was made, as well as what could be next for both the show and the band. Watch our video interview above.

• READ MORE: ABBA Voyage reviewed: an epic avatar mega-mix from a brave new world

Premiering earlier this week at the purpose-built ABBA Arena in Stratford, East London, to a delighted response from fans, the ambitious production sees a “digital” version of ABBA (or ‘ABBAtars’) performing alongside a 10-piece live band ( put together with the help of Klaxons’ James Righton ).

Working on the show with ABBA were Svana Gisla (who produced Jay-Z  and  Beyoncé ‘s On the Run Tour), choreographer Wayne McGregor, Johan Renck (who directed  David Bowie ‘s videos for ‘Blackstar’ and ‘Lazarus’), Baillie Walsh (who has directed for  Massive Attack  and  Bruce Springsteen ) and producer Ludvig Andersson (son of ABBA’s Benny Andersson and producer of  And Then We Danced ,  Yung Lean ‘s ‘In My Head’ and  Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again ).

“We did an awful lot of research and development on this, as you can imagine,” Gisla told NME from the red carpet. “We did two years of trying to figure out what this is. We put a lot of time into the philosophical side of it. This is not just about technology, this is about emotion. We wanted to understand the core of ABBA and the music and how to deliver it in 2022.

“A lot of this is about restraint. When all of the technology and everything is available to you, it becomes an exercise in restraint. The music is the guiding light.”

Gisla said that there was “nothing nostalgic about this concert apart from the music”, and that the whole approach was very forward-thinking.

“ABBA look like they did in 1979, but they’re firmly rooted in the now and in the future. Everything else is as forward as it can be,” she said. “You’re going to see a lot of things that you’ve never seen before. The feeling of being inside the arena will be unique, it’s very immersive. People use that word a lot, but when you go in there you’ll fully realise the capabilities of an immersive environment. It’s like being in the eye of the storm.”

Asked about how long the show could be set to run for, Gisla replied: “I don’t want to jinx it, but if this is a success then we can be here for a few years. We’re on borrowed land, we didn’t break any ground, the arena is moveable and we can pack up and leave when we aren’t wanted anymore.

“I hope the audience wants us to stay for a bit, because we feel like we’ve made something really special.

Director Baillie Walsh, meanwhile, said it was surreal that the “dream” from inside his head finally now on the stage for people to see. Walsh sternly denied that what fans would be seeing was “a hologram”, and in fact something quite different.

“We filmed ABBA for five weeks,” he said. “Wayne McGregor extended their moves into younger bodies – our doubles – and we blended those performances together. Now we have our 2022 ABBA.

“It was very emotional every day. It was like NASA in having so many people in the studio every day, but the whole studio were in tears most days. It was really extraordinary.”

Asked why it was necessary to build their own venue for the project, Walsh said that it was needed to match the ambition of the concept.

“ABBA’s ambition for this project was a beautiful thing, and it was a creative ambition, rather than a money-making exercise,” he said. “Building the arena was just part of that. You can have more lights because you’re not moving around from venue to venue and it’s bespoke. I could design the show around this building.”

As for how long the show could be set to run in London for, he said: “It’s up to the fans really. I hope it’s a destination for a long, long time.”

It is now believed that the concept could be copied for other veteran acts, but Walsh said it might not be so easy to imitate.

“ABBA were so involved in this,” he said. “They’re the heart and soul of it. There aren’t many bands like ABBA around. A posthumous show wouldn’t have the same kind of feeling. The fans know that ABBA are involved and that this isn’t a cynical exercise. This is ABBA.”

Choreographer Wayne McGregor agreed – detailing what went in to capturing the pop icons’ dance moves and movements.

“We’re using a process called motion capture, which you’ve probably seen in movies,” he said. “We use these little dots to take the maths out your body. We take all these zeroes and ones and put them into a computer and build an avatar. It’s a long process. It captures the essence of you, but then we really have to work into that.

“I was taking dance moves from them – I wouldn’t dare show ABBA dance moves. I just wanted them to be themselves and get them back into their performance energy, because they haven’t performed for a while. Then I had to work with the body doubles to transform some of that amazing physical from the ‘70s into maths and find a way of combining the two.”

Enjoying those weeks of having the band perform and sing before him, McGregor described their time together as “perfect”.

“It’s insane to have those amazing performers sing their whole catalogue in front of you,” he said. “They were so bold, brave and into it. It was really exciting. How amazing is it to have this legacy project where you can see ABBA over and over again? It’s a piece of theatre, a piece of performance, a concert like no other. You really feel like you’re inside the music and that’s fabulous.”

He added: “For this show, the technology marries emotion and brings the emotion of those songs directly into you. I love the fact that audiences can actually come in and dance while watching. I’ll be back, every Friday night!”

Co-executive producer Renck, said that he ranked his experience of working with ABBA among his bucket-list projects of working with Bowie, but “in a very different capacity”.

“My entire upbringing was about music,” he told NME . “Everything that is me is music in one way or another. It’s the most important thing for me ever, and the life journey of being seven or eight-years-old and my mother playing ABBA in the car to being here now is a pretty substantial thing, isn’t it?”

He remained coy about details of the show itself, but said: “I’m not going to tell you anything because it’s better to just come and witness it. It’s a very unique experience in all sorts of ways. Whether you’re an ABBA fan or not.

“I’m using the word ‘experience’ a lot, but it takes you to a place you haven’t been before.”

We also asked each of the team if they felt that this really could be the last we see of ABBA.

“I think this is the final thing,” replied Gisla. “They’re quite genuine in that, but they’ve said that before. I think this is it. It took a lot to make and it was hard work, from us and from them.”

Walsh also said that he “didn’t think” ABBA would reunite for any projects again, while Renck added: “Who knows? I’m sure that some of these four do not see it as an endgame, in any shape or form. Benny is music, that’s what he lives, breathes and does every day. That’s never going to stop. Whatever iteration that comes out, who knows? But I don’t think there’s any kind of punctuation to be had.”

Watch our full video interview with the creators of ABBA Voyage at the top of the page.

All four members of ABBA also spoke to NME on the red carpet , telling us about the experience of reuniting and what might be on the horizon for the band.

When asked if the concert was a parting gift from the band, Björn Ulvaeus said: “I think this is it. It’s sad to say that but then again, you can always take it back, can’t you? So the answer is, it could be yes, it could be no.”

Meanwhile, Benny Andersson joked: “This is what you’ll see, this is what you’ll get. Then we’ll go home and we’ll sleep.”

In a five star review of ABBA Voyage ,  NME  concluded: “Ageing rockers and poppers are bound to imitate the idea, but it’ll be a struggle to come close to the experience of ABBA Voyage. We for one welcome our new ABBAtar overlords, if only for giving these songs back to us in a totally new and joyful way.”

Visit here for tickets and more information .

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Inside the production of ABBA’s holographic pop residency

By Guy Campos in Live Events , Production , UK&I May 31, 2022 0

The Swedish pop royalty spent five weeks in a motion-capture studio operated by George Lucas’ company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to produce their ABBA-tars

Swedish pop royalty ABBA spent five weeks in a film studio wearing figure-hugging motion capture suits during the development of a London holographic concert residency which opened last week.

The performers worked with George Lucas’ special effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which is known for its work on movies such as  Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

Some 160 cameras scanned their bodies, recording every movement and facial expression, to develop the avatars which drive the live show. Body doubles were also used to give the ageing band members, now in their seventies, more youthful movements.

#ABBAVoyage , a concert like no other, is finally here! pic.twitter.com/EUfxMKIDIn — ABBA Voyage (@ABBAVoyage) May 27, 2022

According to a detailed profile of the production process in Billboard magazine , m ore than 1,000 visual-effects artists and one billion computing hours went into the making of the performers' "ABBA-tars". These ABBA-tars appear on huge 65-million-pixel screens, pictured life size on stage and in photo-realistic close-ups.

The ABBA Voyage show takes place in a purpose-built, 3,000-capacity ABBA Arena in East London, that uses 20 lighting rigs and more than 500 moving lights. The venue houses 291 speakers and has LED lights spelling out the band's name on its outer skin. It also provides space for a ten-piece live band which accompanies the recordings of Agnetha and Frida’s voices, Bjorn’s guitar and Benny’s piano.

Last week's premiere of the show was attended by all four ABBA musicians together with King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden and celebrities including Kylie Minogue, Zara Larsson, Jarvis Cocker, Kate Moss and Keira Knightley.

According to Billboard magazine, the magic of the otherwise stunning premiere show was broken only fleetingly when the avatars addressed the audience and their pre-recorded words were drowned out by the crowd, with no delay taking place to milk the applause of the audience as would happen with live pop stars.

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Super Trouper

Baillie Walsh, the mastermind behind ABBA Voyage, the blockbuster “virtual concert” in London, on the making of a game-changing spectacular, the future of live performance, plus his own amazing adventures in the worlds of pop, performance, music and film

The British film director Baillie Walsh is a man of many parts. He broke through as a director of music videos, initially with Boy George and then the Bristol trip hop collective Massive Attack, for whom he made the promo for the magnificent “Unfinished Sympathy”, from their era-defining 1991 album, Blue Lines. Later he directed memorable videos for Kylie Minogue, INXS, New Order and Oasis.

Walsh has made numerous award-winning commercials; acclaimed shorts; documentaries about music ( Springsteen & I ); and about filmmaking ( Being James Bond: The Daniel Craig Story ). He has written and directed a feature film, 2008’s Flashbacks of a Fool , starring that same Daniel Craig as a faded Hollywood star — narcissistic, hedonistic — forced to confront his past in 1970s Britain. (Don’t worry, Daniel, it’ll never happen!) For the finale of an Alexander McQueen fashion show, in Paris in 2006, he created a hologram of Kate Moss. I was in the audience for that show. It was beautiful, ghostly, and oddly moving.

Testimonials from prominent collaborators are not hard to come by. Moss, no slouch herself in this department, talks about his “sense of style and incredible taste.” Kylie mentions his incredible “capacity to convey emotion.”

“At his heart,” says Daniel Craig, “Baillie is a showman. The incredibly hard work that goes into all his projects is for one purpose: to move an audience, to give them a totally new experience, to affect them emotionally and spiritually and send them away with smiles on their faces.”

All of which could accurately be said of the 62-year-old’s latest project. It is perhaps his most high profile, and ground-breaking, to date. ABBA Voyage, which embarks seven times a week, including matinees, from the purpose-built, 3,000-capacity, spaceship-like ABBA Arena in Stratford, east London, opened in May to reviews that might reasonably be characterised as ecstatic. “Jaw-dropping,” marvelled the Guardian . “Mind-blowing,” panted the Telegraph .

I saw the show in early July. It is that rare thing: an event that exceeds its hype. It is, not to sound too fulsome, an astonishment. It is, also, a potential game-changer for the music industry and even for the idea of “live performance” — whatever that means after one has seen it.

ABBA Voyage has been described as a “virtual concert”. The former members of one of the most beloved and successful pop groups of all time — that is, Agnetha Faitskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — do not appear on stage in person. But they do appear. (ABBA disbanded in 1982; although they reconstituted the group five years ago, and have since released new music, it’s been over four decades since they gave a public concert.)

Instead of flesh and blood ABBA, the show is performed by life-sized, animated CGI avatars of the four members, restored by technology to their pop star primes. (ABBAtars, the producers call them.) But it’s also performed by the real ABBA, in the sense that they sang the songs, and danced the dances, in a studio in Sweden, and motion-capture technology allowed those performances — the singing, the dancing, even the chat between the songs — to be combined, on “stage”, with a live 10-piece band and a spectacular light show. The effect is uncanny. It’s not quite correct to say one feels oneself to be present at an ABBA concert in 1979. You are aware (just about, and sometimes not even) that it is 2022, and that in real life the members of ABBA don’t look like that anymore. But you are also conscious that you have entered another world — a virtual world, which is not to say you’re not in it — where you can be thrilled and moved by the power and beauty of some of the most familiar songs in the pop canon, those gorgeous, melancholic bangers that only those four people, together, could have made. The show might be virtual, but the feelings it evokes are genuine. I know, I felt them.

ABBA Voyage benefits from the talents of thousands of technicians and creatives: among others, a huge team from Industrial Light & Magic, the Hollywood visual effects powerhouse; the brilliant British choreographer Wayne McGregor; Swedish costume designer B Akerlund, whose clever modernising of the band’s stage wardrobes gives the show its convincing retro-contemporary feel; the live band; producers Ludwig Andersson and Svana Gisla. But if the Voyage is a trip, and it certainly is, then Baillie Walsh is the man at the controls.

Slim, tanned, and handsome behind dark glasses — so youthful, in fact, that one wonders if this is really him, or a CGI avatar of his younger self? — Walsh arrives on the dot for his Esquire interview, at a hotel in Soho on a Tuesday morning (he lives just around the corner), orders a cup of English breakfast tea and settles himself at a quiet table. He talks for close to two hours, with barely a pause: about ABBA, avatars, his three decades and counting in film and music, and his own extraordinary backstory, from teenage tearaway to Top of the Pops and beyond…

The conversation below, as they say, has been edited and condensed. (A lot.)

Let’s start with how you got involved with the ABBA project. What happened?

One of the producers, Svana Gisla, I’ve worked with many times. I made Springsteen & I with her. A Kylie video, an Oasis film. And she was working with [Swedish director] Johan Renck on this project, and then he had this enormous success with [acclaimed HBO series] Chernobyl . So he saw a film opportunity and didn’t want to do this. [Raised eyebrow.]

Lucky for you!

Lucky for me. I had a Zoom call with Benny and Bjorn and they said yes on that call. That’s where it all began, three years ago.

How far developed was the idea when you signed up?

Johan had done a road map and there was a set list, which came from ABBA. But it was a very rough idea. They knew they wanted to make younger versions of themselves, that was ABBA’s idea. Whether that was going to be holograms or whatever, that was still up for grabs. So I came on board and there was a gradual process of: “What is this thing going to be?” The creative process on something like this is long, because it’s so big. You’re not doing one song. You’re asking, “What is this monster, what can it be?” So, my first job was to sit down and think about what I would want to go and see. I always played it like that. Then it was about talking to ILM about what would be possible. Ben Morris, the creative director there, was really brilliant to work with. And he loved the challenge, the idea of having life-sized avatars, and wanting to feel like they are really there .

Was there a Eureka moment where you said, “I know what this should be! It’s a live concert given by CGI performers!”

There was a few. When I realised, first of all, they have to be life-sized, that the audience has to feel like they are there. I knew it wasn’t going to be holograms. Holograms are so limiting, in the sense that you can’t light them. So then it was, “What does that mean?” We want life-size avatars but we want to see them really big, in detail, like you have at a concert, with the big screens. So we want those iMAG screens.

IMAG screens, for those of us who don’t know…

Those big screens, so when you go to see Beyonce, and she’s the size of a bean, you can see her close-up. But this isn’t the O2, where you’re so far away you can’t see or hear or feel what’s going on.

Your arena is much smaller than that.

That’s part of the success of the thing, I think, that arena. It’s really quite intimate. You can see every face in there, and the excitement spreads. I mean, there are many reasons for the success of this, so far. Lots of magic has happened. I’m a part of that, but the fact that it’s ABBA, the fact that they are still alive, and contributed enormously to this, and their soul is in this. The fact that they haven’t toured for 40 years, so there’s a great hunger to see them live, in whatever form. The arena, which is the perfect size, I think. And also so well designed, so comfortable. It doesn’t feel like you’re going to a horrible, beer-stinking arena, with turnstiles. From the moment you arrive, it’s already exciting. Like, “What the hell is this ?”

Because it could have been a disaster.

Yes. It could have been a disaster, so easily.

Because it’s a very weird idea.

Yes! Totally. The whole thing I fought against is the tech, being led by the tech. The tech should be the least important thing. The important thing is the emotion. I want people to laugh, dance, cry. And you’ve got to be really careful with that. It’s multi-layered, because you are playing with the past, the present and future. And all of those big questions. You can’t throw that in people’s faces. The concert isn’t a big intellectual idea. And I never tried to intellectualise it. But I knew there were lots of big ideas under the surface.

There’s a lightness of touch to it that’s very appealing. And, of course, in the moment, unless you’re weird, you are not trying to deconstruct it. You’re just enjoying yourself. But afterwards I certainly was provoked to think about mortality, ageing, nostalgia…

But you can’t be heavy handed with those things. All I ever thought was, if I’m feeling emotion, if the ideas for presenting the songs resonate with me, then I’m on to something. Because I am the audience. So if it chokes me up, it’s going to choke everyone else up.

There are some people who feel that emotion stimulated by technology is somehow cheaper. That it’s inauthentic, in some way. That a concert given by avatars is fake.

The interesting challenge was: how can we fall in love with an avatar? That was the challenge. I wanted to do that, to fall in love with an avatar. And I did! The soul of ABBA is in those avatars. Their voices, those speeches, everything they say, the soul is there. It’s irrelevant that it’s an avatar. I mean, it’s helped by the fact that it’s ABBA, and their music is very emotive. That’s a massive advantage. If it had been Black Sabbath, it would have been harder to fall in love with the avatars. But ABBA’s songs, everyone has a connection to those songs. They are part of our DNA. They are part of who we are.

Talk a bit about the process of creating the avatars. How did you do it?

Basically, we were in a studio in Sweden for five weeks, with ABBA. And we filmed them with 160 cameras, in motion-capture suits. We went through the whole set list, and more, and they performed those songs for the cameras. It was a very bizarre, amazing experience. You’re in this kind of NASA-style studio, with monitors and cameras everywhere, and 100 people in there taking all the data. A very bizarre situation. As individuals they are really lovely people, but the moment you bring those four people together, something happens. This strange alchemy. Which is a really rare thing. I mean, I’m sure it happens when the Stones come together, or when the Beatles came together. This extraordinary energy. I don’t want to get all woo-woo about it. But it’s perceptible. When they came together on that stage, on the first day, it’s goosebumps. It’s a magical thing. And that’s why I feel so lucky to have got this gig and to have been able to do what I’ve done, with ABBA. I can’t think of another band who would be better than them for this project. I’m spoilt now. I’m fucked, really. I’ve made something that hasn’t been done before, which is a really rare opportunity. How am I gonna top this?

That was going to be my last question. I was going to leave your existential crisis for later.

Now that you mention it though…

I haven’t had time to think about it. I’ve been on this project for three years and I’ve had four days off. I finish on Thursday and go to Iceland on Saturday.

For a holiday?

I’ve got a house there. This’ll be the first time I’ve been in three years, but it’s where I go and spend time alone. I look at nature, and look at sky, and go fishing, and it’s good for my head. I’m not quite sure how it’s going to work this time. I’m expecting an enormous crash.

Clearly, you’re going to have a terrible time.

Terrible! It’s going to be awful. No, but I have just had the best job that I’ll probably ever have. I hope that’s not true. But I think it’s the best job I’ve ever done. I’ve worked for a very long time and there are peaks and troughs. But the scale of this is what makes me most proud. It’s big!

It feels game-changing in many ways, and it does open a Pandora’s box. What does this mean for live performance? What does it mean for musicians? For audiences? Could you do it with the Stones? What would it mean if you did?

Of course you could. Charlie [Watts] isn’t around, so you’re going to miss that. But yes, you could.

You couldn’t do it with Prince, for example, presumably because you can’t do the motion-capture part?

No, but you could do it. Especially with the way technology is moving. You could do it posthumously. But one of the things that is great about what we’ve been able to do is, we’ve been able to update ABBA. It’s not just nostalgia. It’s past, present and future. It’s about being able to reinvent ABBA for 2022. It’s not about recreating the 1979 Wembley concert. That wouldn’t be interesting. You can watch that on YouTube.

What about the Stones, then? Would it be desirable to do this with them?

That’s not for me to say. It’s not desirable for me. Because I think I’ve had the best band to do this with. The Stones have been on tour since year dot. They’re still on tour now. Of course, it would be exciting to see Mick in his heyday. But Mick is still so great live, at 78. Unbelievable. Not only running about the stage, but singing at the same time! I can’t walk and speak! He’s still doing it, and that’s what you want to see, with the Stones.

There are ethical concerns, too. Especially the idea of doing it with dead people.

Well, Whitney! They made a hologram of her. I didn’t see it. I saw bits of it on YouTube. But the first word that comes to mind is “grotesque.” Because that’s just a money-making exercise.

Is this going to be rolled out to other countries?

Yeah, I think so. You could do Vegas, you could do New York.

Will you be involved in those?

I hope so. This is my baby and the idea that someone else is going to take it and remodel it in some way that I found really annoying… I hope I am involved. Maybe we can add something to this that will knock people’s socks off even more? Because we do have the ability to change the show. We recorded more songs, filmed more songs. Maybe we can improve it?

One more question on the ethics of it. If a contemporary artist came to you, say Beyonce, and asked you to do the same for her as you’ve done for ABBA, to put on a virtual Beyonce concert that could play every night of the week in cities around the world, forever, and she need never leave the house again, would you? Because that idea worries people who love live music.

Yes, but I think they shouldn’t worry. Because first of all, Beyonce loves to perform. She’s not going to stop, because she is a genius performer. That’s who she is. That’s her being. And I don’t think this is going to replace anything. It’s part of the entertainment world now. But people want to see live concerts, and people still want to perform them. You think Bruce Springsteen is going to stop touring because he could do a virtual show? His life is touring. And most of those people who perform, it’s who they are. The Stones don’t want to sit at home with their feet up! They want to be on stage. They love that adoration. Who wouldn’t? 100,000 people screaming that they love you? Gimme more! So I don’t think people should be worried. They should be excited. And it’s not just music. The idea of how theatre can use this. The immersive quality of it. That thing about not knowing where the real world ends and the digital world begins. All that is really interesting. I want to see what other people do with it. I want to be excited and blown away and confused. I really look forward to seeing where it goes.

You live round the corner from here. Did you grow up in London?

I was born in London and then moved to Essex when I was young. And brought up there, all around Clacton-on-Sea, those terrible seaside towns. Working on Clacton pier, being a bingo caller, that was the start of my showbiz journey.

Do you come from a showbiz family?

No. My mum was a pharmacist, my dad was a rogue, a gambler, with all of the disaster that brings. And my mother brought up three kids on her own, pretty much. I have an older brother and a younger sister.

What kind of boy were you?

I was a rogue, too, a runaway. At the age of 14 I ran away for a month, and was in London with my friend. Can you imagine?

What were you doing?

Stealing. Shoplifting from Portobello antique shops and selling it on the Market. I was a terrible, horrible child.

Where were you living?

At the Venus Hotel on Portobello Road, with my friend’s sister. She had two children and she lived in one room in the hotel, and we lived there too. But I got caught, in the end, and put into a home, a halfway borstal. And that fixed me. I was only a couple of weeks but it scared the life out of me. And then I decided, somehow, I was going to go to art school. I was always in trouble at school, for fighting, but this teacher picked up on the fact I had some kind of talent and nurtured me, and I got into Colchester art school, doing graphics.

When was this?

I was there from 1976 to 79.

During punk.

Yeah. But I wasn’t a punk. I was more of a soul boy. It was [famous Essex soul club] Lacy Lady for me.

And after you finished art school?

Well, I didn’t want to be a graphic designer. I didn’t want to be trapped behind a desk. It wasn’t for me. Back in those days you didn’t think about a career. I just went on the adventure. I became a coin dealer, by accident.

How does a person become a coin dealer by accident?

It was when there was a gold rush on. We used to set up in hotels and buy gold and silver by weight, and the person whose business this was, was a coin dealer. I knew nothing about coins. But the great thing about it was, we travelled all over the world. And of course, I’d never travelled. I was 19, 20, and I moved to California. And I got bored of that after six months, came back to London for a holiday, and I got a job dancing with the girls at the [legendary Soho strip club] Raymond Revue Bar. Basically, erotic dancing.

Hang on. You need to explain this.

OK. So, I was staying in this really crummy flat where there was newspaper on the kitchen floor. And I saw an advert there for people willing to appear naked on stage. And I thought, “I could never do that.” So: great, you’re gonna do it. Things that are fearful, you do them. I love that. That’s the whole thing about being creative. I love to be shit-scared. So I called up and I got the job.

Did you have to audition?

You had to take all your clothes off and dance around?

The first audition was just take your clothes off and stand and pose and turn around for the choreographer, Gerard. And I later went to visit him at his flat on Charing Cross Road. And there’s this bay window that looks out onto the National Portrait Gallery, the Garrick Theatre, the neon lights, I’m 20 years old, and it’s like, “This is the best flat in the world!” And the dancer I took over from had the flat upstairs, so he moved out and I moved in, and I still live there today. I’ve been there 40 years, my whole adult life. And I think I might stay.

So the Raymond Revue Bar…

My first taste of showbiz!

It’s a load of girls getting their kit off on stage and…

Yeah, you’re a prop. You’re naked, and you have simulated sex. There’s a scene. You’d come out and pretend to play tennis, and then the music would change and suddenly it would be a sauna scene, and there’s a bench, and the lights change and you’re pretending to throw water over the girls… It was a real experience. I never got used to it. The audience are men. They want to see naked girls. They’re not happy when they see you up there.

How long did this last?

About a year? And while I was working there, I met Antony Price, at the Camden Palace. And he became my first boyfriend.

And Antony Price, for those who don’t know, was an important fashion designer…

The designer for Roxy Music. He was a real hero of mine when I was a kid. When I was 14. All those album covers, all those clothes… And because I was a dancer, Antony asked me to stage his fashion show, at the Camden Palace. So at the age of 21, I did that. At the time it was a really big deal.

Your first directing job.

Yes. I learned so much from that, and from him. His style and taste and knowledge of film and music. Just an unbelievable man.

Was that the end of your career as an erotic dancer?

Well, then I became a model. That was great. Modelling gave me the chance to try lots of things and meet lots of people. And I was successful. Modelling was a different world then. I made a living from it for a reasonable amount of time. I enjoyed it for a while, then it gets dull. It becomes a job. The glamour wears thin. And then I was getting dancing jobs as well. You know, dancing with Bananarama.

I don’t know! Tell me about dancing with Bananarama. When was that?

1987, I think. I got a call from [now famous Strictly judge] Bruno Tonioli saying, “Do you want to dance on Top of the Pops ?” So, I went, “Lifelong ambition!” So, me, Bruno, and his boyfriend then, Paul, were the backing dancers for Bananarama on Top of the Pops .

Which song?

“I Heard a Rumour.”

I’ll look it up on YouTube.

You should. [I did. The trio certainly carry off their cycling shorts.]

When does the film directing start?

At the age of 25 I saw 1900 , the Bertolucci film. And that blew my head off. I just thought, I want to do that.

What was it about that film?

Just the epic quality, the skill in the filmmaking, the beauty, the emotion, the characters, the storytelling… it had everything. Now, I’m never going to make a film like 1900 , but I started making little films with my mates. Super 8 and video cameras. And then I made one video in 1987, with [performance artist, nightclub legend, fashion icon] Leigh Bowery, who was a great mate.

You knew these people through nightclubs, that amazing scene in London in the 1980s?

Yes, exactly.

Were you a Blitz kid?

No, after that. Taboo, Leigh’s club, in Leicester Square, that was the best for me. That was the summit of my nightlife.

It’s always striking, that so many influential creative people came from that very select, underground world.

Everybody was there. [Film director] John Maybury was my boyfriend at that time. I went out with John for 17 years. I learnt a lot from him. They were amazing times.

All the most important future fashion designers and photographers and artists and filmmakers and pop stars in one room in London, dancing. It's hard to imagine this happening now…

Because of social media, I suppose. People are on their phones all the time. They don’t go out anymore. It’s one important point about the ABBA show [which insists the audience switch off their phones.] I had to really fight for that. Because otherwise they spend the whole concert filming it.

People can’t process a show, or anything else, unless they mediate it themselves.

It’s just like, “What the fuck are you doing?” It’s such madness.

You wonder what people think they are going to do with all that footage. What’s it for?

I know. Is it about ownership? “Look, I filmed this!”

So the ABBA phones policy came from that?

Yes, for all those reasons. But it was a very contentious idea. Lots of the suits, they disagree. They think that’s what everyone wants. I said, no, nobody wants that. They want to experience the show. They don’t want it ruined. The moment you put a phone up, everything’s abstract. You’re not in the moment. It’s insane. Stop!

So back to the career. You’re making a film with Leigh Bowery.

Yes, I wanted to make a pop video. So I made a track, a series of samples, called “Boys”. And Leigh is the lead in it. And Boy George saw it. This was ’87. And he asked me to make a video for him. And that was it, I was away. I made one called “After the Love”, and then “Generations of Love”, in 1990. That changed everything for me, because Massive Attack saw it. Basically it was the story of Soho, at that time. Thatcher had been in power for a long time. I was just seeing homeless people everywhere. It was really bad. So I got all my mates dressed up in drag, as prostitutes. Leigh styled it. I made a porn film, so we could project it for a scene inside one of the porn cinemas. I went and presented it at Virgin, and persuaded them. They paid the bill. And the next week I got a letter saying if you EVER show this film anywhere, we’ll sue you. But I got away with it. And it was a calling card. I still think it’s my best video. I have such fond memories of it.

And that’s what got you Massive Attack.

What a gift! To be given that album. I got the first four singles. Goosebumps, immediately, “Unfinished Sympathy” is one of my favourite songs ever, still. So beautiful. Extraordinary. And because they were the biggest band of that year, and I was associated with them, suddenly I had a career. Hate that word, career. I had the possibility of a working life, of becoming a director, I was up and running.

"Unfinished Sympathy" was such a distinctive video: one take, [the singer] Shara Nelson walking through Downtown LA, apparently oblivious to everything around her. And that’s it.

It hadn’t been done before. I wanted to challenge myself, I wanted to be scared. “Can I do this?”

It’s the antithesis of one of those videos that’s all about trying to sell the image of the star, the band.

But the song gave me this. That thing of when you are really hurt, and you are walking down the street and you are completely and utterly within yourself. You are not noticing anything that’s going on around you. We’ve all been there, right? Just destroyed by love. I wanted it to be that unbroken thought. This inner voice. That came from the music. But at the same time I was very aware that I was going against the tide, which I knew was a really good idea. Always a good idea. Because every [other] video at the time, it was [director] David Fincher, and it was all about fast-cuts.

His stuff with Madonna?

Yeah, it was all fast cuts. Make it as bright and shiny and fast-cutty as you can. And I’m sorry but “Vogue” is a fucking genius video. And David Fincher did it very well. But we went against the grain, made it really gritty. And Massive Attack’s music always smelt American to me. It sounded so big, so epic. I really wanted an international visual language for them. Take it away from Bristol, from the UK. So Downtown LA. In fact, the first video I did for them was “Daydreaming”, which I set in the Deep South. But yes, opportunities were coming thick and fast at that time.

You were very successful for a while.

Yeah. I only made thirteen videos. And then the world changed, budgets shrank, the demands from the record companies grew. And I thought, if you want me to basically make advertising, I’ll go off and make a ton of money doing that.

Which is what you did.

It’s what I did. I don’t say I made a ton of money but I earned a living. And the great thing about advertising, as nasty as it can be, is that you get to hone your craft. You’re filming, you’re on a set, you’re working with people. That’s really important, because making films is next to impossible, right? I’ve never been lucky at that.

Was it always in your mind, throughout the Eighties and the Nineties and beyond, to make a feature film?

Always. Always to make movies. And I wrote many and nearly got them made and spent years trying, as you do with films.

And, finally, you got there, with Flashbacks of a Fool .

Yes. And there were really good things about that and really bad things about that. The great thing was, I wrote that for Daniel Craig before he was Bond, right? We’re mates. And he still wanted to make it after he became Bond, which was wonderful. Because that meant all the effort that I’d made when I tried to get it made before he was Bond, and failed, had not been wasted. When he became Bond that gave him enormous power. He could get anything made. And he was generous enough to sprinkle some of that glitter on to me, and to allow me to make that film. The trouble with that is, that this small art film is then sold as a Bond film. Which is a disaster. Because if you deceive an audience, they don’t like it. You can’t sell candyfloss as popcorn. People want to know what they’re buying, so when it’s released as a fucking Bond film, and it’s a small little art film that should be in two cinemas and possibly grow from there, it’s a disaster. And critics don’t like it, either. No one likes it. I still have a fondness for Flashbacks , but I was really hurt by the response to it. When you put that much heart and soul into something, and you have a joyous time making it, and it’s received with a shrug of the shoulders and a “whatever”, it’s tough. The opposite to what the ABBA thing has been. This is all five stars. Every review. I’ll never have reviews like this again. But the reviews for Flashbacks knocked me, they knocked my confidence. I doubted myself. I felt misunderstood. It was really, really annoying. “No one understands me!”

How did you recover from that?

Well, cut to two years later, someone sends me a link to Flashbacks on YouTube and I read the reviews on there. It blew me away. Floods of tears. Because what I wanted, it did happen, people did get it. So I’m not saying the film is a success, or good. But the response I wanted did happen, and that was a beautiful thing. So I’m really fond of the film. I know it’s flawed but I think there are great moments in it, and I learnt from it. I would love the opportunity to make another feature film. I still have that ambition. Even though film now, somehow, has really lost its lustre. It’s really shocking.

Why is that?

The demise of Weinstein, I think. It died with Weinstein. It was dying anyway, but that finished it off. Because when he was at his pinnacle, the monster that he was, but how fucking great were the films? And the stars! Now, apart from Tom Cruise, there are no movie stars left.

The independent film scene in the Nineties and Noughties was rocking.

It was so exciting. And it’s gone. It’s such a tragedy, obviously, that Harvey was such a monster. Not only for the obvious reasons, for the people affected by his behaviour, which is a tragedy. But also for cinema. Now, the world’s a different place. That was the zeitgeist, that was the time. And now cinema is not nearly as interesting as it was. So yes, I do want to make films, but the idea of making an arthouse movie and going to Poland to show it at a fucking festival, is not interesting. I want people to see it!

What about TV, where all the action is? Is that appealing?

Yeah, I have a TV series I’d love to make. It’s called Pussycat Lounge, based on my year at the Raymond Revue Bar. Set in that period. [Production company] Tiger Aspect had it. That didn’t go very well. Got it back from them. And right now no one is interested. I think that because I do so many different things, it’s kind of hard to place me.

You’re a victim of your own versatility?

Maybe. I always try to treat everything I do with the same enthusiasm. I don’t think there’s a difference between all these things [videos, and films, and shows]. But people in Hollywood don’t think like that. They want you to repeat everything. We all know that.

They would rather you did another ABBA Voyage than made a TV show.

Exactly. Although having said that, I do love putting on a live show, seeing people’s reactions, having an adoring crowd. And it also seems to me that this golden age of TV is coming to an end, too. Five years ago, every director wanted a TV show. Now it feels like that’s dying. There’s too much stuff, right? I’m just overwhelmed when I go on to Netflix. That was the great thing about growing up in my period: you had to wait for the single to come out. You had to wait for Top of the Pops on Thursday, to see that performance. Now we’re just fucking overwhelmed.

Not least by social media. We’re all on our phones.

I think social media is a terrible thing, I don’t do any of it. It’s just noise. I think it’s the least creative thing ever. And if I was on it, because I’m obsessive, I would want to do it well, and that’s a full-time job. It’s all-consuming. I wouldn’t have made [the ABBA] show if I was on social media. I wouldn’t have had time!

Also, don’t know about you but I have never been moved by a post on Instagram. I have never been enlightened by a Tweet. These aren’t media where we can really connect deeply with other people.

No! It’s impossible. I’m suspicious of all posts. They all have a motive. They aren’t gifts. They’re not about anything but the person who sends them. It’s all about you . And, actually, fuck off!

A lot of stuff seems to be dying. I saw Glastonbury on TV. It was Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney…

And Diana Ross! Fucking geriatric. Torture, it was torture! Although I had to watch the Pet Shop Boys, because I know them. And you know what? They were fucking great. Like, “OK! Now we’re cooking!”

The risk is, we end up sounding like a grumpy old men.

But I am! And it’s hard to be excited about anything when there’s too much stuff.

Which brings us back to the ABBA show.

It’s exciting because it doesn’t feel like anything else. It’s different. It’s a miracle! Seeing the joy drip off the walls of that arena, it’s unbelievable.

So what’s next?

A holiday. And because I’ve thought of nothing else for three years other than ABBA, I need to take a breath, and be quiet, and think. Like I was saying, I’ve been really spoilt, with this project. What’s next? The thing is, in a way it’s not for me to say. All these opportunities that have come my way, people have given them to me. A lot of them, I haven’t gone searching for them. So what’s next is, wait for the next job to be offered.

That sounds both admirably zen, and also a little terrifying. What if nothing comes along?

Something always has. Alex, I’ve done this for 30 years or more. There are times when I’m really popular, and times when I can’t get arrested. That can go on for years. There have been times when I haven’t worked at all for two years. Because I couldn’t get a job. But that’s the nature of my business. You’re in and out of fashion. You do something that gets lots of attention and you’ll get work for a couple of years, maybe. And then it stops again. You do the best you can. You might do quiet work for a bit. A commercial that’s only shown in China. To earn a living. And you wait for an opportunity.

For a couple of weeks, I’ve got opportunities.

And you’re going to disappear to Iceland?!

They know where to find me. But, no, the ABBA show is going to roll out all over the world, right? That’ll give me some longevity. And by that point I’ll be dead anyway. So, I’m not fretting.

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Peek behind the scenes of the Abba Voyage show and its stunning visual effects

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Earlier this week, I was among the first, lucky few to watch the spotlit figures of Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad rise from the stage floor of the custom-built Abba Arena to rapturous applause.

What was easy to forget in the moment of the spectacle was that the Abba members I was staring at weren’t real. Of course, this is physically evident, given the famous four here resemble their much younger selves while dressed in ’70s sequinned ensembles.

Yet despite knowing the Swedish pop legends have been immortalised in avatar form, the realism is hard to ignore.

Little details, such as the convincing way the light glistens on sequins, the fluid hair movement and those signature simple dance moves up and down the stage, mean you have to keep reminding yourself that the famous four aren’t actually in the room.

The 90-minute show is both a futuristic marvel and a nostalgic time capsule for Abba fans both young and new. Their highly anticipated return not only kicks off a 196-show residency, it also shows off the latest technological advances in musical immortality and an incredible feat of visual effects.

But how is it all done?

Visual trickery

Despite what you might have read, these are not holograms. Instead, we’re told, they are three- dimensional avatars displayed on a flat screen.

The brains behind the Abba-tars, as they are more playfully known, are the folk at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), the special effects company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, which has worked on projects including Jurassic Park and the Marvel films.

With about 1,000 visual effects artists working on the Abba show, the ILM team has spent months painstakingly creating digital versions of the band through cutting-edge motion-capture technology and performance techniques.

Hundreds of hours have been spent on each band member performing and being recorded by 200 cameras from dozens of angles, all while wearing motion-capture suits.

‘As you might imagine, creating realistic digital humans that can perform consistently for the duration of a concert is still a very complex and time-consuming process,’ says creative director Ben Morris.

‘First we build a very accurate static model of each “present-day” Abba’s face, based on 3D scan data. This model is then animated using ILM’s proprietary performance capture tool sets, many of which are developed in collaboration with our colleagues at Disney Research Studios in Zurich.

‘Following this initial procedural step, our global team of animators refines final details and ensures consistency over the entire duration of each song.’

It’s no secret that when you’re in your seventies you can’t dance around like you did when you were in your thirties. That explains why a highly trained group of younger performers were brought in to capture body performances and provide the more physically demanding and dynamic movements of the avatars.

‘Alongside these processes we started creating our younger digital Abba faces and bodies using every available piece of archival material we could find’, adds Morris.

‘The challenging part is when we start to transfer the moving face and body performances from our present-day performers to the younger digital Abba-tars. If we didn’t match the performance correspondences exactly, our Abba-tars would instantly fall off-model, something we aimed to avoid.’

To top things off, they’ve also created some of the most complex digital costumes ever put on screen. ‘Our digital costumers painstakingly recreated countless couture outfits that were all based on real outfits designed by a number of famous design houses specifically for this project,’ says Morris.

‘Every stitch and sequin was duplicated in exacting detail and then run through a series of computer simulations to ensure it reacted to body movement precisely as it would do on the live performer.’

The hard work has certainly paid off: the result is four very convincing life-size 3D images performing on stage, alongside a ten-piece live band, that absolutely appear as if they are Abba in the flesh.

Arena effects

It’s not just about watching Abba’s digital twins on stage, though. A very large kinetic system, for example, controls moving mirrors, lasers and lighting. The audio system completely envelops you with the auditorium’s 291 speakers.

With the essence of the show being to ultimately integrate the physical with the digital, the unique thing about the production is having to design the physicality of the shows (the lighting and the special effects) way in advance.

This is so ILM could film each individual instrument, take their colour temperatures and reproduce the actual light or laser source, or other effects, then subsequently create that in the digital world. The aim of that is to make one blend into the other so it appears as though the Abba-tars are performing in the same physicality.

‘It’s very unusual to have to design in detail every aspect of the show or the lighting and all the special effects, and integrate those before we’ve even gotten into a rehearsal situation,’ says technical director Nick Page.

Making the arena

Taking place inside a purpose-built 3,000-capacity venue at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, the show was literally built from the ground up and ran in parallel as the production developed. The brains behind the hexagonal arena is British architecture company Stufish, which has installed shows for Beyoncé and the Rolling Stones.

‘It was a huge benefit, having the opportunity to design the venue,’ says Morris. ‘With so many complex creative technologies coming together to create the blend between virtual and real worlds, it was essential we could tailor the building to exactly fit our unique requirements.’

The mix of music and tech provides a realistic performance and means you’re immersed. You don’t have to be at a certain angle in the arena to enjoy it, either: the seating arrangements have been developed to give the best viewpoints wherever you’re sitting.

The goal on this project was ‘to achieve a shared human experience where the audience believes the arena and virtual space are one seamless real world space’. We can happily confirm that the team behind the show have achieved exactly that.

Tickets start at £21, from the Abba Voyage website .

MORE : Abba Voyage: Groundbreaking hologram experience is absolutely magic

MORE : Abba reunite in London for first time in 40 years and my, my, just how much we’ve missed them!

MORE : When are the ABBA Voyage tour 2022 dates and can you still get tickets?

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Abba Voyage concert: a major technological and artistic achievement

All hail the “Abbatars” and the undeniable power of the band’s hits.

By Emily Bootle

When Abba rise through the stage of the new arena built in their name in Stratford, east London, beamed up with spotlights like gods, the stadium erupts. Despite an announcement asking the audience not to photograph or film the show to maintain the “mystery” of the Abba experience, iPhones are raised instantly to record the moment. Here are Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid as younger, virtual versions of themselves, more than 40 years after their last live show in London. Three thousand people are dying to see them. Just 90 minutes previously, a crowd had congregated outside the Pudding Mill Lane DLR station to witness the real, 2022 versions of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid walk the red carpet for the opening night of Abba Voyage, the band’s new show created with motion capture technology, screaming with delight at a mere glimpse of the back of their heads.  

Abba Voyage is not so much a musical experience as a religious one. The stadium, nestled among blocks of flats and not far from the Olympic tower, looks something like a spaceship; this is spirituality for the future. After four balls of light transform into Abba from below the stage, their presence, no matter how unreal, is almost overwhelming.  

The show intersperses the de-aged, 30-something “Abbatars” – they are not holograms, apparently, in which case it’s completely beyond me what they are, given that they look 3D, and move like real people, and touch each other – with projections of the filmed show on huge screens that encircle half the arena, from floor to ceiling. Instantaneous switches between the Abbatars and the screen sometimes tricks your eye into thinking the giant Abba are also 3D, at an appropriate size for the intensity of the experience. 

[See also: The Edinburgh Fringe wars ]

That the show unfolds with the euphoria you would expect from a live Abba gig is testament not only to the extraordinary technology but also, of course, the power of the music. In “Chiquitita” the whole crowd rises to their feet for the first time, ecstatic. The hits keep coming: “Fernando” with a twinkling backdrop of the Northern Lights; “Lay All Your Love on Me” with a rainbow light show that engulfs the audience; an emotional rendition of “Thank You for the Music”; and a projection of Abba at Eurovision 1974 performing their winning hit “Waterloo” (here, the Abbatars dance around behind the original footage, creating a bizarre timewarp). If you thought it couldn’t get more surreal, in “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” I turn around to see that the King and Queen of Sweden, who have flown in specially for the event, are on their feet, dancing and clapping nestled among their hefty security cohort.

It’s astonishing how quickly you adjust to the avatars, which on first sight look a bit like Sims; particularly when they’re stationary, their lack of adherence to the laws of gravity gives them an uncanny weightlessness. Halfway through the show the live band, usually tucked in the left-hand corner of the enormous stage, takes over for “Does Your Mother Know” and, although they perform it with energy and skill, the three   flesh-and-blood singers shimmying across the front of the stage, somehow it doesn’t quite land – the crowd wants not only to hear the music but to be in the presence of its creators.

Abba Voyage is touted as an “immersive experience”, a term that gets thrown around a lot these days. Here it feels like it actually applies. You are drenched in Abba – the distinctive harmonies and Benny’s twanging piano, the costumes and the chemistry, and the raw joy and pain, the emotional directness that makes this music timeless and irresistible. At the very end, in a profoundly moving moment of the past meeting the present, technology giving way to reality, gods becoming humans again, the real Abba – now in their 70s – walked onstage for a curtain call and the stadium filled with deafening cheers.

Abba Voyage is an extraordinary technological and artistic achievement, brilliantly entertaining and somehow beautifully uncynical. But more than anything, it shows that there is nothing more real than pop music.

[See also: Woodstock ’99 overlooks the festival’s most disturbing problem ]

“Abba Voyage” is at the Abba Arena, London E20, until 2 October

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What is ABBA Voyage? How 'hologram' concert works in specially built arena

ABBA are launching their ground-breaking ABBA Voyage concert today, which will see the lines between digital and reality blurred as the Swedish pop band perform as digital avatars in a special built arena

• 10:39, 27 May 2022
• Updated 15:29, 27 May 2022

It’s been over four decades since their last tour, but ABBA are returning to the stage (sort of) for their ABBA Voyage concerts.

In actual fact, the members of ABBA won’t be appearing on stage themselves, instead they’ll be appearing as digital avatars.

Last year, the iconic Swedish pop group released their first studio album since the release of The Visitors in 1981.

Their ninth studio album, titled ABBA Voyage , sold over a million copies within its first week worldwide, and has received more than 190 million combined streams to date.

Now the pop group are hosting a ground-breaking concert following their return to music.

Here’s everything you need to know about ABBA Voyage.

What is the ABBA Voyage concert?

The ABBA Voyage concert is ABBA’s brand new concert that will see fans experiencing the pop group in a performance like no other.

Agnetha, Björn , Benny and Anni-Frid will appear digitally to perform for thousands of fans.

The ABBA Voyage concerts start today (Friday May 27) and will run until at least December 2022.

A custom-built arena, named the ABBA Arena, has been built specially for the shows at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.

The 90-minute concert will feature a setlist of ABBA’s hit songs, including tracks from their recent ABBA Voyage album.

How does ABBA Voyage work?

ABBA’s “hologram” concert is not actually a hologram concert at all, but it is the first of its kind as it blurs the lines between physical and digital.

A hologram is a virtual three-dimensional image, but the show’s producers have said this isn’t what they’re using for the concert.

Last year, producer Svana Gisla told Dazed: “We’re not making three-dimensional holograms.

“I don’t think any hologram shows have been successful. After five minutes, I don’t think they’re that interesting.”

Instead, they’ve made avatars, nicknamed ABBAtars, to appear as digital versions of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid.

The ABBAtars will appear on a 65million pixel screen and will bring the Swedish pop legends to life using the latest in motion capture technology.

The concert has been six years in the making. To create their digital selves, the band performed in motion capture suits for five weeks while 160 cameras scanned their body movement and facial expressions.

The ground-breaking technology used will allow the ABBAtars to take concertgoers back in time as they depict the group just as they appeared in 1977.

The ABBAtars will perform alongside 10 live musicians who will help bring the concert to life.

MORE ON Abba

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How ABBA Voyage and other avatar or ‘hologram’ concert performances evoke fans’ real responses

Assistant Professor of Music, Ambrose University

Disclosure statement

Alyssa Michaud receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and from the Ambrose University Research Fund.

View all partners

At ABBA Voyage, a 90-minute long digital concert event, ABBA’s Benny Andersson looks over the crowd and addresses them reassuringly: “ This is really me , I just look very good for my age.”

Andersson, of course, is not physically present in the arena, but rather is a digitally animated avatar.

ABBA Voyage is a new type of concert experience, where avatars of the pop stars are accompanied by live musicians . This performance is hosted in a 3,000-seat custom-built concert venue in London.

Unlike earlier digital avatar performances (sometimes referred to as “hologram” concerts ), ABBA Voyage plays out on 65-million-pixel LED screens . In previous shows featuring the likes of Roy Orbison and Whitney Houston, performers’ avatars were projected onto a band of translucent plastic. In both formats, an animated two-dimensional image on a screen gives the appearance of a lifelike, 3D performer.

Recent research on K-pop performances with digital avatars has shown that these digital performers can in fact create a sense of co-presence and immediacy with a live audience, and ABBA Voyage concerts do the same.

Voyage blurs the boundaries of what audiences understand as a live performance, contributing to a century-long conversation about the complex relationship between technology and performance in the arts. It raises questions about whether digital avatar concerts can meet audiences’ expectations in a live concert experience.

Read more: K-pop fans protest against treatment of Monsta X lead singer

Skeptical about aims

Many fans and critics were skeptical about ABBA’s virtual return, which was preceded by a new record release, also titled Voyage .

Reviews of the digital concert experience frequently use language that paint the experience as hyper-real and somewhat uncanny . Reviewer Niall Byrne of the Irish music site Nialler described the show as featuring ABBA “ cryogenically frozen as their younger selves .”

But 1.3 million ticket sales later, the show’s success speaks for itself.

However, the fixation on whether or not ABBA Voyage is a “real” concert takes attention away from a far more interesting conversation: how an avatar performance evokes very real responses from an audience sharing a physical space and an emotional experience.

Fans prepare and invest

In 2022, my research assistants and I conducted interviews with audience members ranging in age from their early 20s to their late 50s who had travelled to ABBA Voyage from five different countries in North America and Europe. One of the themes concertgoers were most eager to describe was their preparation for the concert.

Attendees discussed in detail the plans they had drawn up for their trip — sometimes nearly a year in advance. They described the long wait and anticipation they felt, the outfits they had prepared and the way they had re-listened to ABBA’s music — all in an effort to feel ready to participate in an event that they hoped would be meaningful and memorable.

Fears about technology, emotional payoff

Our interview subjects commonly experienced apprehension at the beginning of the show, owing to the amount of preparation they had invested as concertgoers.

For some, it was anxiety about the extensive use of technology and the ways it might hinder the experience. For others, it was simply a nervous hope that the show would live up to their expectations.

One interviewee from Bristol, England, found that they were unable to relax into enjoying the show until they had overcome these anxieties:

“You kind of invest so much into it and you so much want it to be brilliant and you’re kind of a bit worried that you might feel let down. So it wasn’t until the first 10 minutes was over that I found that like: ‘Oh, I can relax now. It is really brilliant so I can enjoy it!’”

Despite fears about technology and the show’s emotional payoff, every interviewee who expressed these reservations later affirmed that their expectations were exceeded by the concert.

Creating lasting memories

Audience members reported that they left the venue with a sense of connection to those with whom they shared the experience — a finding that echoes recent research into fan experiences at other digital concert events.

Some participants noted that they felt unexpectedly emotional participating in this group dynamic, including a middle-aged man:

“It’s kind of like shock and awe isn’t it? …. I felt quite emotional at times through the concert, and you’re thinking: ‘Well, why are you emotional? It’s technology that’s like, reproducing this for you….’ I know there were people around me that were feeling the same way as well, and how often does that happen, you know?”

Voyage works on an emotional level because it encourages audience preparation and anticipation, and then delivers a collective experience of live connection, surprise and wonder.

Human connection

Audiences bring a performance — holographic or otherwise — to life with their attention and investment , and ABBA Voyage serves as a clear demonstration of this effect.

These interviews demonstrated the ways that the audience’s preparation positions them to have a meaningful experience, and how the carefully designed elements of the show ease anxieties about potential disappointment or alienation during the pre-programmed concert.

The audience at Voyage can experience a sense of community and feelings of personal meaning, regardless of whether the performers are bodily present. As music researcher Christopher Small has argued, experiences of identity and meaning in a musical experience are co-created by all of its participants, including the audience.

The new performance practices at ABBA Voyage — and audience members’ responses to them — offer important insights into the inner workings of live audience engagement, particularly as we move further into an age in which human and technological elements are becoming increasingly intertwined.

Research assistants John Glanville and Anna Konrad co-authored this story.

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Bjorn again: Is the Abba Voyage digital concert tech the future of live music?

Can hologram-like representations of Abba live up to the band's heyday?

My my! Abba are back – but not as you’ve ever seen them before.

It’s been forty years since the Swedish foursome, responsible for some of the most recognisable songs in pop music history, last released new music. But Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad are back with new tracks – a new album, Abba Voyages, to be released in November 2021 – and more excitingly, new live shows.

Except, Abba themselves won’t be present at the shows, set to take place in London from May 2022. Instead, they’ll be there in digital form – and de-aged to appear just how they were at the height of their powers toward the end of the 1970s.

Teaming up with George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), the Abba Voyage shows will see the band perform ‘live’ night after night, having had a performance (choreographed by Wayne McGregor, resident artist at London’s Royal Ballet) recorded in 3D in front of 160 cameras by a motion capture team. This footage was directed by Baillie Walsh, and produced by Johan Renck (worked on the superb Chernobyl TV show) and Svana Gisla, who teamed up with Renck on promo videos for David Bowie’s final record, Blackstar. The talent behind the camera is just as astonishing as it is in front of it, then.

These recordings were then handed over to close to 1,000 digital artists at four of ILM's global studios, who used archive footage to take the scans of the band and roll back the years, ready for a performance that will give the illusion that the band of the 70s have been teleported to the roaring 2020s.

“We’re truly sailing in uncharted waters. With the help of our younger selves, we travel into the future,” Benny Andersson told the Guardian .

The next generation of live performance

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen digital representations of much-loved artists. Remember Tupac’s surprise digital resurrection at the 2012 Coachella festival? It was the start of a whole new industry for holographics performances, with long-dead stars returning to stages around the world. And while it’s not an identical technology to what Abba is using (which appears to be a form of advanced 2D projection giving the appearance of depth), it’s conceptually the same.

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David Nussbaum, CEO of PORTL , a telecommunications company that uses hologram-like projection technology to beam lifesize appearances of individuals in real time anywhere around the world, has worked on many such hologram gigs throughout his career.

“We would bring lots of dead people back to posthumously perform in sold out cities around the country and around the world,” he told TechRadar. Nussbaum worked on live performances from departed artists like Jackie Wilson, Billie Holiday and even Whitney Houston (for a duet with the very-much-alive Christina Aguilera, for an episode of the US version of The Voice which never aired). 

While such gigs have primarily been used to bring back deceased performers Nussbaum anticipates that this is just the beginning of creative uses of bringing both the living and dead to new performance locations – and to preserve them for future ages to enjoy.

“You can hit the record button on any of these performances and create hologram jukeboxes,” posits Nussbaum.

“Imagine going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or any of these artist Hall of Fames and instead of seeing a picture on a wall, or a plaque, or statue, seeing the artist performing the music that he or she was made famous for. Imagine interacting with them, talking to them, having them talk back. I believe people are most excited by physical interaction, close up, experiences, and almost having that VIP to share the same space as these as these amazing performers”

Nussbaum’s PORTL tech, though primarily envisaged for business use, could be similarly applied to the performance space.

Its box-like appearance offers  “25,000 lumens of super bright white interior light, all projecting onto a single projection area where a 4k resolution image is revealed, the content. It works in almost all forms of light,” describes Nussbaum.

“You can pre record any piece of content and play it back. It's great for advertising, it's great for conventions and stuff. It’s the evolution of the mobile phone, it's the evolution of holograms. We would be able to beam you in real time to interact with any person in any venue, around the world on a whim.”

Will it be any good?

Unless you have ready access to a time machine, you’re not going to be able to head back to Abba’s late 70s heyday and see them in all their pop pomp and glam glory. So this really is as good as it’s going to get.

And all the signs point to this being a really well considered venture for the band, and a special experience for its legion of fans. From the care that’s gone into the motion capture, to the fact it’s taking place in a purpose-built arena, specially designed to best present the tech in a flattering and convincing manner, suggests we could be in for the time of our lives at the shows. 

Abba Voyage has a benefit that all previous, similarly-tech-fuelled revivals and resurrections have lacked – all members of Abba are alive and well. So not only do the designers of the show have classic archive footage to base performances on, but they’ve been able to work alongside the band themselves, capturing the mannerisms and movements exactly before applying a lick of de-ageing paint to the foursome. In addition, it’s not necessarily a karaoke show either – all four members have been back in the studio, laying down new recordings and vocals of the classic hits. It may be a pre-recorded show, but at least it’s one that will have never been heard before opening night.

Perhaps most appealing though is the price – with the digital Abbatars performing five times a week (sometimes with two performances happening per day), ticket prices have been able to stay relatively low, with the cheapest starting at just £21 a pop. Performing takes a great physical effort, particularly for older stars, but the Abba Voyage tech means the band can ‘play’ night after night without burning out, allowing for more shows and cheaper tickets.

“I think this will be a regular thing that people do,” says Nussbaum, “instead of jumping on a plane, spending six or seven hours in the air, getting checked into a hotel.

“This is going to be what people prefer. It not just saves them money and saves them time but it's saving the Earth. I've seen over the last 18 months companies not just saving millions or even billions of dollars in air travel, but their carbon footprint goes down to virtually nothing.”

In a post-covid age, this could be a glimpse at a potential future of touring for bands – record a motion capture show, and send the digital files to be broadcast anywhere in the world from the largest arenas to tucked away theatres. It may never capture the full experience of an in-the-flesh, sweaty star singing their hearts out and all the potential spontaneity that comes with it. But for bands entering their twilight years, it’ll let the songs keep playing long after their last notes have been sung.

• How to stream the new Abba Voyage songs

Gerald is Editor-in-Chief of iMore.com. Previously he was the Executive Editor for TechRadar, taking care of the site's home cinema, gaming, smart home, entertainment and audio output. He loves gaming, but don't expect him to play with you unless your console is hooked up to a 4K HDR screen and a 7.1 surround system. Before TechRadar, Gerald was Editor of Gizmodo UK. He is also the author of 'Get Technology: Upgrade Your Future', published by Aurum Press.

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How ABBA Voyage and other avatar or 'hologram' concert performances evoke fans' real responses

by Alyssa Michaud, John Glanville and Anna Konrad, The Conversation

At ABBA Voyage, a 90-minute long digital concert event, ABBA's Benny Andersson looks over the crowd and addresses them reassuringly: " This is really me , I just look very good for my age."

Andersson, of course, is not physically present in the arena, but rather is a digitally animated avatar.

ABBA Voyage is a new type of concert experience, where avatars of the pop stars are accompanied by live musicians . This performance is hosted in a 3,000-seat custom-built concert venue in London.

Unlike earlier digital avatar performances (sometimes referred to as "hologram" concerts ), ABBA Voyage plays out on 65-million-pixel LED screens . In previous shows featuring the likes of Roy Orbison and Whitney Houston, performers' avatars were projected onto a band of translucent plastic. In both formats, an animated two-dimensional image on a screen gives the appearance of a lifelike, 3D performer.

Recent research on K-pop performances with digital avatars has shown that these digital performers can in fact create a sense of co-presence and immediacy with a live audience, and ABBA Voyage concerts do the same.

Voyage blurs the boundaries of what audiences understand as a live performance, contributing to a century-long conversation about the complex relationship between technology and performance in the arts. It raises questions about whether digital avatar concerts can meet audiences' expectations in a live concert experience.

Skeptical about aims

Many fans and critics were skeptical about ABBA's virtual return, which was preceded by a new record release, also titled Voyage .

Reviews of the digital concert experience frequently use language that paint the experience as hyper-real and somewhat uncanny . Reviewer Niall Byrne of the Irish music site Nialler described the show as featuring ABBA " cryogenically frozen as their younger selves ."

But 1.3 million ticket sales later, the show's success speaks for itself.

However, the fixation on whether or not ABBA Voyage is a "real" concert takes attention away from a far more interesting conversation: how an avatar performance evokes very real responses from an audience sharing a physical space and an emotional experience .

Fans prepare and invest

In 2022, my research assistants and I conducted interviews with audience members ranging in age from their early 20s to their late 50s who had traveled to ABBA Voyage from five different countries in North America and Europe. One of the themes concertgoers were most eager to describe was their preparation for the concert.

Attendees discussed in detail the plans they had drawn up for their trip—sometimes nearly a year in advance. They described the long wait and anticipation they felt, the outfits they had prepared and the way they had re-listened to ABBA's music —all in an effort to feel ready to participate in an event that they hoped would be meaningful and memorable.

Fears about technology, emotional payoff

Our interview subjects commonly experienced apprehension at the beginning of the show, owing to the amount of preparation they had invested as concertgoers.

For some, it was anxiety about the extensive use of technology and the ways it might hinder the experience. For others, it was simply a nervous hope that the show would live up to their expectations.

One interviewee from Bristol, England, found that they were unable to relax into enjoying the show until they had overcome these anxieties:

"You kind of invest so much into it and you so much want it to be brilliant and you're kind of a bit worried that you might feel let down. So it wasn't until the first 10 minutes was over that I found that like: 'Oh, I can relax now. It is really brilliant so I can enjoy it!'"

Despite fears about technology and the show's emotional payoff, every interviewee who expressed these reservations later affirmed that their expectations were exceeded by the concert.

Creating lasting memories

Audience members reported that they left the venue with a sense of connection to those with whom they shared the experience—a finding that echoes recent research into fan experiences at other digital concert events.

Some participants noted that they felt unexpectedly emotional participating in this group dynamic, including a middle-aged man:

"It's kind of like shock and awe isn't it? …. I felt quite emotional at times through the concert, and you're thinking: 'Well, why are you emotional? It's technology that's like, reproducing this for you….' I know there were people around me that were feeling the same way as well, and how often does that happen, you know?"

Voyage works on an emotional level because it encourages audience preparation and anticipation, and then delivers a collective experience of live connection, surprise and wonder.

Human connection

Audiences bring a performance—holographic or otherwise—to life with their attention and investment , and ABBA Voyage serves as a clear demonstration of this effect.

These interviews demonstrated the ways that the audience's preparation positions them to have a meaningful experience, and how the carefully designed elements of the show ease anxieties about potential disappointment or alienation during the pre-programmed concert.

The audience at Voyage can experience a sense of community and feelings of personal meaning, regardless of whether the performers are bodily present. As music researcher Christopher Small has argued, experiences of identity and meaning in a musical experience are co-created by all of its participants, including the audience.

The new performance practices at ABBA Voyage—and audience members' responses to them—offer important insights into the inner workings of live audience engagement, particularly as we move further into an age in which human and technological elements are becoming increasingly intertwined.

Provided by The Conversation

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Pophouse Buys Rights to KISS – Here's What They Have Planned

Pophouse - the Swedish company that backed ABBA's Voyage show in London and owns rights to music by Swedish House Mafia , Avicii and Cyndi Lauper - is acquiring KISS ' publishing, recording royalties and trademarks, including both the band's logo and its iconic makeup design. The deal, announced April 4, will result in a Pophouse-produced KISS hologram show, using some of the same technology as ABBA's Voyage.

"We have a lot of plans for KISS," Pophouse CEO Per Sundin tells Billboard . Although Sundin says the company bought out the rights owned by frontmen Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, they will work with the company to develop the show, which is expected to open in 2027 in a U.S. city that Sundin declined to name. "We want to keep to the legacy," Sundin says. "We want to extend it and amplify it for new generations."

The band got interested in a possible deal when manager Doc McGhee saw Voyage "and he loved it and contacted us," Sundin says. Over the course of the band's End of the Road World Tour, the two sides met in Milan and Stockholm, thinking about what a hologram show could look like.

"We went to see the ABBA show and it blew our socks off," Simmons tells Billboard . "And the technology since then has improved by leaps and bounds. We've seen sketches of what it will look like and we looked like the X-Men."

Like dozens of other investors, Pophouse buys rights to songs and in some cases recordings or likenesses. But it tends to take a more active approach than most, with a focus on theatrical or immersive entertainment, rather than simply collecting royalties. In addition to the ABBA show, it runs the ABBA Museum and the Avicii Experience , both in Stockholm.

The idea of a hologram show seems ideal for KISS, whose concerts were always heavy on spectacle. "Everything is theater," says Simmons. "We wanted bombast theater."

Over the course of its career, KISS inspired the KISS Army, formed around an act that could have been described as the hottest brand in the land, with deals that included KISS Kondoms and a KISS Kasket. (Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell was buried in one that Simmons donated.) Now, after the End of the Road tour, "the end is actually the beginning," Simmons says. "If you're a caterpillar who can't imagine what the future will look like, you think of the cocoon as the end, and it is the end of the caterpillar, but it can't imagine sprouting wings and evolving into this beautiful creature that flies up to the heavens."

Pophouse would not comment on the terms of the deal, which are presumably more complicated than a straightforward purchase of publishing rights. At this point, the band may be better known for its concerts than its songs. But the deal includes those, plus recording royalties. Pophouse also has a good relationship with UMG, which owns the band's recordings, since Sundin was previously managing director of Universal Music Sweden and president of Universal Music Nordics. The band's trademarks belonged to Simmons and Stanley, including the makeup designs for their characters: The Demon (Simmons), the Starchild (Stanley), the Spaceman (originally Ace Frehley, more recently Tommy Thayer) and the Catman (originally Peter Criss, more recently Eric Singer).

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ABBA, Blondie, and the Notorious B.I.G. enter the National Recording Registry

FILE - Notorious B.I.G., who won rap artist and rap single of the year, clutches his awards at the podium during the Billboard Music Awards in New York, on evening, Dec. 6, 1995. Albums from ABBA, Blondie and the Notorious B.I.G. are entering the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. They’re among the 25 titles announced Tuesday, April 16, 2024, that have been selected for preservation as “defining sounds of the nation’s history and culture.” (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - 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 London, Thursday May 26, 2022. Albums from ABBA, Blondie and the Notorious B.I.G. are entering the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. They’re among the 25 titles announced Tuesday, April 16, 2024, that have been selected for preservation as “defining sounds of the nation’s history and culture.” (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)

FILE - Clem Burke, from left, Debbie Harry and Rob Roth attend a screening of “Blondie: Vivir En La Habana” during the 20th Tribeca Festival in New York on June 16, 2021. Albums from ABBA, Blondie and the Notorious B.I.G. are entering the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. They’re among the 25 titles announced Tuesday, April 16, 2024, that have been selected for preservation as “defining sounds of the nation’s history and culture.” (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — ABBA, Biggie, Blondie and Rudolph are entering America’s audio canon.

New inductees into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress include ABBA ‘s 1976 album “Arrival,” The Notorious B.I.G. ‘s 1994 album “Ready to Die,” Blondie ‘s 1978 breakthrough “Parallel Lines” and Gene Autry’s 1949 version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced the 25 new titles in the class of 2024 on Tuesday, saying in a statement that they are “worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage.”

Puerto Rican singer Héctor Lavoe’s signature song, 1978’s “El Cantante,” written by Ruben Blades, will enter the registry , along with Mexican singer Juan Gabriel ’s tribute to his mother, “Amor Eterno.” The library is enshrining a 1990 recording of the song first released in 1984.

Other titles deemed to be among “the defining sounds of the nation’s history and culture” are Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 album “Surrealistic Pillow,” Green Day ’s 1994 album “Dookie” and The Chicks ’ 1998 “Wide Open Spaces,” the most recording among the new inductees.

Lily Tomlin’s 1971 album of sketches “This Is a Recording” is the only comedy and the only non-musical recording on this year’s list.

Autry, the singing cowboy who was among America’s biggest stars in the mid-20th century, recorded the definitive version of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Last year a newer holiday perennial, Mariah Carey’s, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” joined the registry, which now has 650 titles .

“Arrival” was the disco-tinged fourth album from the Swedish supergroup ABBA, and included their hits “Dancing Queen,” “Money, Money, Money” and “Fernando.”

Blondie and singer Debbie Harry had their commercial breakthrough with “Parallel Lines,” an album with a famous striped black-and-white cover that featured “Heart of Glass.” It’s joined this year by another new wave classic from the same year, the self-titled debut album by the Cars.

The Notorious B.I.G.’s 1994 album “Ready to Die” featuring “Juicy” and “Big Poppa,” the only album released during his life, headlines hip-hop entries that also include “La-Di-Da-Di” — Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s 1985 single.

“Rocket ‘88’” by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, the 1951 single that some argue was the first rock ‘n’ roll song, is also on the list.

Career-defining singles from several canonical artists are also entering the registry, including “Chances Are,” from Johnny Mathis, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” from Bobby McFerrin,” “The Tennessee Waltz” from Patti Page and “Ain’t No Sunshine” from Bill Withers.

This story has been corrected to report that the ABBA album included is “Arrival,” not “The Visitors.”

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Upgrade to the ultimate ABBA Voyage experience with access to the exclusive Oceanbird Lounge.

Priority Entry

Skip the queues when you arrive with a fast-track entrance into the ABBA Arena.

Arrive Early

Experience the Oceanbird Lounge 1 hour 45 minutes prior to the concert.

Indulge in a variety of food options. Food offerings vary depending on the performance you have booked for.

Unlimited drinks, all served to you by our welcoming staff, including prosecco, wine, beer, draft cocktails and soft drinks.

The Oceanbird Lounge is a premium space within the ABBA Arena, where you can relax and enjoy free flowing drinks – including a Oceanbird-themed cocktail ahead of the concert. The lounge also serves cold-cuts and platters, snacks, and desserts. Elevate your ABBA experience, and make your voyage a trip to remember.

The Oceanbird Lounge is available to all concertgoers. Simply add Oceanbird Lounge access when booking your tickets or purchase a lounge pass separately. When purchasing separately, please ensure you select the performance you will be attending. Opening hours and offerings will vary depending on the date and time of your booking.

Friday and Saturday Evenings

Keep the celebrations going in the Oceanbird Lounge on Friday and Saturday nights, where guests can enjoy the lounge’s hospitality after the concert ends.

Sunday Matinee

Start your Sunday in style with a brunch menu in the Oceanbird Lounge. Enjoy free-flowing drinks as well as unlimited pastries, avocado on toast and other brunch favourites.

Add Oceanbird Lounge access

When purchasing separately, please ensure you select the performance you will be attending.

Want to know more about Oceanbird?

The Oceanbird Lounge is named after our Partner

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the oceanbird lounge.

The Oceanbird Lounge is located on the main concourse of the ABBA Arena. You will be able to access the lounge from 1 hr 45 minutes before your concert.

What food and drink is included? 

The package includes a generous selection of cold-cuts, platters and snacks alongside specially selected wines, beers, Prosecco and soft drinks.

Champagne and spirits can be purchased from the private bar situated within the Oceanbird Lounge.

Food offering will vary depending on the performance you have booked for.

What’s included in the package? 

• Arrive early and experience the Oceanbird Lounge for 1 hour 45 mins prior to the concert, plus extended post-show hours for Fridays and Saturday evenings.
• Relax in a specially designed and welcoming environment.
• A selection of free flowing drinks and food options.
• Souvenir ABBA Voyage aluminium water bottle and Oceanbird Lounge lanyard.

Will there be non-alcoholic drink options available? 

Yes absolutely, there will be a range of soft drinks and non-alcoholic drinks available.

Do you cater to allergies and dietary requirements? 

Our menus are designed to cater for a wide variety of dietary requirements, when arriving at the Oceanbird  Lounge, please make the serving staff aware and allow them to assist with your needs.

For more information on allergens at the Oceanbird Lounge or if you have very specific dietary requirements, please get in touch with us at  [email protected]

More information on specific allergens within our menu will be available shortly.

On-site Merch

ABBA Voyage merchandise is available on site, both inside the ABBA Arena and at our shop at Pudding Mill Lane station.

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Moscow City Symphony-Russian Philharmonic/Dmitri Jurowski – review

G lorying in a name that seems to have been chosen by a very large committee, the Moscow City Symphony-Russian Philharmonic is a smart modern orchestra based in the city's glitzy modern concert hall . Judging by its London debut, however, it is old-school where it counts.

Its chief conductor is Dmitri Jurowski , and his appearance meant there would be a Jurowski on the Festival Hall podium four times in a week; big brother Vladimir was in the audience to cheer him on. The programme was Russian and proud. Extracts from Prokofiev's ballet Cinderella immediately introduced a distinctive sound, soft-edged but hefty, with well-blended strings underpinned by weighty low woodwind; the rasp of the bass clarinet and contrabassoon were to become gratifyingly familiar sounds.

But not so much in Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto, in which the orchestra seemed to be consciously ceding focus to Alexander Ghindin 's piano playing. While Ghindin was all offhand, unfussy brilliance, the orchestra were neat and contained – except, that is, for the opening of the slow movement, when the flute phrasing made the melody sound positively flirty, and Ghindin responded in smooth, almost louche style. His encore, Rachmaninov's G minor Prelude, whizzed by in a flurry of sonorous chords, but the richness with which he brought out the secondary melodies in the middle section spoke of attention to detail worn lightly.

That was just a taster for the main Rachmaninov event – the colossus that is the Symphony No 2, approached by Jurowski with a certain lightness of touch and all the better for it. It was because he began the third movement so gently and at so flowing a pace that he was able to make such an impact with the sense of stillness after its climax. The second movement was crisp, the finale buoyant – and the encore, the Infernal Dance from Stravinsky's Firebird, was a flamboyant signoff from an orchestra confident of hitting its mark.

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