![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4902311_11_articleinline_abba-avatars-press-2021-1392x884.jpeg\" "\\"The"){kind=avatar}
The ABBAtars that have played to 3.5 million people over the last three and a half years of ABBA Voyage.<\/p>\nIn its three-and-a-half-year run at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London, ABBA Voyage has done some serious business. Its taken about \u00a3250m (\u20ac284m), played to 3.5 million people and had been worth about \u00a32bn (\u20ac2.27bn) to the local economy. On December 8, I became its latest stat.<\/p>\n
Twenty-two songs, costumes changes, a 10-piece live band and proof positive that to men of a certain age the debate over \u201cwho is your favourite?\u201d has carried on into the digital\/hologram age. And its Agneta obviously, no wait, Frida! No wait! Agneta! No! Frida!<\/p>\n
I was slightly iffy to begin with. ABBAtars and all that and nothing aging faster in the post-AI world than holograms, but by the midpoint I was bowled over. It was magic. Waterloo \u2014 with actual footage \u2014 and What\u2019s the Name of the Game were stunning and emotional. There was the odd tear.<\/p>\n
I first became aware of ABBA on a school trip to the Wexford Slobs in 1974. They had just won Eurovision and were the talk of the bus. I hadn\u2019t seen them but colour photos in the Sunday World confirmed I\u2019d missed something special. I couldn\u2019t get home fast enough.<\/p>\n
It gets vague after that. I had assumed it was just instant world fame but it really wasn\u2019t. They celebrated their success in the Napoleon Suite at the Grand Hotel in Brighton where, 10 years later, the IRA would almost assassinate Margaret Thatcher, but their fame wasn\u2019t carrying far outside that room.<\/p>\n
\n Ring Ring, the follow up was a flop. With the phrase \u201cone-hit wonders\u201d being bandied about, songwriters Benny and Bjorn were wondering what they could do to be \u201ca bit more like Sweet\u201d. Mamma Mia was offered to and turned down by Brotherhood of Man. Humanity dodged a bullet there.<\/p>\n
As 1974 gave way to 1975 no one was talking about ABBA. It would be late 1975 before the single S.O.S. got them back in the charts. Mamma Mia continued this and a Greatest Hits, Volume One, in 1976, promoted by the single Fernando, kept them bubbling along as punk started to make inroads.<\/p>\n
It was the release of Arrival in October 1976 that signalled the actual arrival of pop music royalty. Money, Money, Money and Fernando, included again, were brilliant but Knowing Me, Knowing You and Dancing Queen were different class. Dancing Queen was played off the radio. A US number one, in 1977, it was unavoidable.<\/p>\n
The ABBAtars that have played to 3.5 million people over the last three and a half years of ABBA Voyage.<\/p>\n
\n Arrival was the biggest selling album of 1977. The zeitgeist belonged to punk, disco and ABBA. Personally, I was knee-deep in punk by this stage, but as I bought New Rose on 7-inch single I\u2019d slip a copy of Knowing Me, picture sleeve in behind it. My secret, no one need know.<\/p>\n
I was in a record shop on Stephen\u2019s Green in late 1982 when I heard Under Attack. I knew it was their last single. Abba seemed incongruous at that point in a world of albums like Costello\u2019s Imperial Bedroom, The Clash\u2019s Combat Rock, or ABC\u2019s Lexicon of Love, but I still loved them. A bit of my youth was going, and I knew it.<\/p>\n
The rise of ABBA tribute bands in the 1990s came as no surprise to me. I couldn\u2019t see the joke in it though or the irony. These were class songs by a songwriting partnership on a par with Lennon\/McCartney or Marr\/Morrissey. You can argue this if you want, but I am happy to fight you outside if you do.<\/p>\n
I kept this secret love to myself until interviewing John Grant of Queen of Denmark fame about 10 years ago. \u201cDo you have any posters on your wall?\u201d I asked. \u201cJust Nina Hagen [a German punk goddess] and ABBA ones,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me more,\u201d I told him, and he did. I haven\u2019t looked back since.<\/p>\n
Enjoying the show, fancying Frida again and contemplating how unbelievably well the songs are put together, how seamlessly the voices dovetail, my mind wandered. Is the ABBA Voyage winding up, as they seem to indicate, in May of next year, or is it just starting?<\/p>\n
Advances in AI have overtaken the Voyage technology. Retooled AI avatars would make these 2022 versions look Stone-Age. And a big question as you face into 2026 and the 50th anniversary of punk: would you attend an avatar version of The Sex Pistols? Yes, me too. Name your feckin\u2019 price, I say!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In its three-and-a-half-year run at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London, ABBA Voyage has done some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-198530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}