{"id":818815,"date":"2026-07-23T13:53:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818815\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T13:53:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:53:30","slug":"the-abba-voyage-live-guitarists-on-playing-guitar-with-a-virtual-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818815\/","title":{"rendered":"The ABBA Voyage live guitarists on playing guitar with a virtual band"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ABBA Voyage concert experience brings to life again the timeless music of one of the 70s\u2019 biggest pop<\/a> groups, ABBA<\/a>. The Swedish foursome called it a day back in 1982, though in 2021 they did reunite on record for one last hurrah which culminated in the album Voyage.<\/p>\n

Then the following year, the group was back on the concert stage albeit in digital form or as they\u2019ve now become known as, ABBA-tars. And to describe the ABBA-tars as holograms is inaccurate; they are digital versions of ABBA created through cutting edge motion capture performance techniques by video effects company, Industrial Light & Magic \u2013 the company behind some of the most incredible Hollywood special effects of the last five decades.<\/p>\n

The Voyage concert is held in the purposely built ABBA Arena in London and features a 10-piece live band, with the twin guitar team of Fernando Sanchez and Christian Mendoza tasked with replicating live all the intricacies of the guitar parts on the original ABBA recordings.<\/p>\n

But ABBA Voyage is no ordinary show. It\u2019s a concert where the technicalities involved are multi-levelled, especially when it comes to the live band who, each night, face the challenge of bringing ABBA\u2019s memorable music to life for 21st century audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to stick as much as we can to the original part and to the arrangements that we\u2019ve been told to play,\u201d explains Sanchez who first auditioned for the gig in June 2025 and made his live debut with the Voyage band in December, 2025. \u201cHowever, because we\u2019re playing every night and doing a lot of shows, you are in this little bubble and so, you start adding a little note here, and adding on something there. But when I do that personally, the next day I try to go back to the original so I don\u2019t lose track of what I\u2019m supposed to be playing. We know as musicians we can do other things and maybe embellish it or do something, but I always try to go back to the original the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that this is not a job for me to put much of a stamp on what I want or what I would think would be needed,\u201d adds Mendoza, who is now in his third season with the Voyage troupe after having first auditioned back in December 2023, and made his live debut in April, 2024. \u201cThese are timeless classics and to go and change like a lead part because I want to do something, is not on. I think the purpose of us is to recreate this music and have people hear these lines and be excited that they\u2019re hearing the stuff that they were excited about when they were young or first heard it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ABBAImage: Johan PerssonReconstruction Workers<\/p>\n

From day one the modus operandi for all the musicians involved with the concert was to reconstruct the sonic aspects to the original recordings in minute detail. In order to help the musicians along in the process of learning the material, charts were also offered up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily a gig where you have to read music, but it is obviously a massive plus if you do,\u201d explains Sanchez. \u201cI do read music. So, in my case, I got sent the charts and I had to learn the songs before we went into rehearsals. And then in rehearsals we have our MD who is guiding us through it, so if we\u2019re playing a part that is not being played correctly, he will come and let you know what we\u2019re supposed to be basically doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And early on in the process, the musicians received some guidance from ABBA\u2019s piano playing maestro Benny Andersson.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I joined, Benny was at some of the rehearsals and there were a few things like if he heard something that he maybe wanted more closer to on the record, he would mention it,\u201d recalls Mendoza.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike with the lead line in Knowing Me, Knowing You. It was funny because he said, \u2018I don\u2019t know what\u2019s on the paper as it doesn\u2019t matter, because what\u2019s on the record is this\u2019. And he then sang the line to us. So, he knows that sometimes liberties maybe get taken in the way that stuff gets written, but that was an example of something where he felt strongly, \u2018Let\u2019s do it like the way it was\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he was very gracious. I believe that at that point had we been playing something very differently, I feel like that wouldn\u2019t have happened because they would\u2019ve made sure that before Benny came to the rehearsals, we were playing the music the way it is intended.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FernandoFernando Sanchez. Image: PressIn The Pocket<\/p>\n

One of the difficulties both guitarists and the band face each night are the occasional alternating tempos of the original recordings which were recorded in the pre-digital age where click tracks weren\u2019t a common practice in the studio as they are today.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the tracks are not exactly to the grid,\u201d says Sanchez. \u201cPeople record to a click track today, but some of the avatar\u2019s instruments are not to a click so, we have to pay attention. For example, in Chiquitta, there\u2019s a part where Christian and I are playing the exact same thing and we need to listen to the track intently because it kind of moves around the click. And if we are not playing accurately to that part, it\u2019ll just sound a bit messy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a click in our tracks, but they [ABBA] didn\u2019t put the music to a grid, so it\u2019s going to move,\u201d adds Mendoza. \u201cIn Chiquitta, because everything goes quiet at one point, the click obviously is louder in our ears than normally, but because the piano part is slower, we kind of have to ignore the click in that part at the beginning and just play to the piano, even though the click is still there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to play together to this piano part and ignore the click to kind of know when to come in. It\u2019s only for a couple of bars, but those are little challenges we face. Sometimes intros too like on Thank You for the Music the click is only given to us in the intro and then we don\u2019t have a click. So, the drummer has to play to the vocals and we have to match his beats to the vocals. But that\u2019s a lot easier to feel, as you\u2019re playing in time following the drums.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChristianChristian Mendoza. Image: PressKnowing Me, Knowing Tubes<\/p>\n

Perhaps surprisingly given the technological nature of the show, both guitarists are running real tube amps for the show. Both employ Mesa\/Boogie<\/a> California Tweed amps<\/a>, with Mendoza primarily using a Fender<\/a> Telecaster<\/a> for the majority of the concert, and a Fender Strat<\/a> for a few select numbers, while Sanchez uses a Fender Stratocaster for the entire performance. Just as important is the selection of tones for the guitars, which too, has to be matched to the tones on the recordings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI built my pedalboard to what I knew and also after hearing the music, certain overdrives<\/a> because the gig doesn\u2019t really necessarily need much distortion<\/a>,\u201d explains Mendoza. \u201cI try to get close to it with just an overdrive tone, not so much 80s distortion or whatever. I got a Phase 90<\/a> too because of the funky parts and all that kind of stuff. I remember when I auditioned, there was somebody who came in with a sort of more of a heavy metal<\/a> tone and they were playing right, but I remember they were asked, \u2018You think you could put less drive on your sound as it\u2019s not quite in context with the style.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI got given the pedalboard that the previous guitarist had chosen for the gig,\u201d interjects Sanchez. \u201cSo, for me, the challenge was to rearrange the way I wanted to use the pedal board, because obviously the other guitarist was using it in a different way. So that might have affected the tone. I had to try to change a few things, but it was a conversation that we had to have with the guys, so that I didn\u2019t change the tone much because it\u2019s a very specific thing for the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ABBAImage: Johan Persson<\/p>\n

With multiple performances per week, sometimes with two in a day, how do the pair cope with the pressure to deliver the goods night after night.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it\u2019s a live band and we\u2019re on stage all the time, for me that gets me buzzing with the audience,\u201d affirms Sanchez. \u201cIt\u2019s not like other stage shows where you are sat in a pit and it\u2019s very small. I get excited if I\u2019m going on stage to play to 3,000 people every night and even though we\u2019re playing the same thing, there are fantastic arrangements, and the band that we\u2019re playing with is amazing. And we have certain freedom to interact with each other on stage, too, which makes it more interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m what they call a road dog,\u201d concurs Mendoza. \u201cSo, I\u2019m more than happy for me as a musician personally. A day played, is better than a day you have not played. And I started out with my first paid gig, when I was 15 years old playing weddings with my parents. My parents are musicians and I played clubs five days a week and three one-hour sets back in my home country of Mexico. So, I\u2019m used to very late nights and playing and that\u2019s just what I live for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ABBA Voyage concert experience brings to life again the timeless music of one of the 70s\u2019 biggest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4624,64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-818815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-artist","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}