ABBA Voyage was unreal – in every sense of the word - Connacht ...

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

In terms of the weirdest experiences you could image, few would rival a jam-packed musical arena where fans are dressed like they’ve just arrived from the seventies as they wait with eager anticipation of watching four holograms sing the hits of ABBA for the next 90 minutes.

ABBA Voyage is unique – on that there is only agreement. Whether it’s a good or a bad thing is a subject of much debate.

For the few who don’t know what’s going on, the Swedish Eurovision winners have been re-invented as digital avatars, looking like they did in the glory days of 1979.

So you pay in to a specially converted venue – right next to the London Olympics stadium in Stratford, now home to West Ham United – and for an hour and a half you suspend belief as you take a step back in time.

The avatars – or ABBAtars – are incredibly lifelike, even waiting for those audience reactions (the applause or the cheers) as they talk between songs that the original four members re-recorded specifically for this project.

There’s an actual ten-piece band with three singers to one side of the stage – or at least you assume they are real because there’s no reason to go to the expense of digitising them – and they play in perfect synchronicity with the imaginary versions of Agnetha, Frida, Benny and Björn.

This is one occasion where, the further away you are from the front of the stage, the more convincing it all becomes. But when you’re halfway down the hall, they look like four real – and very familiar – people from the musical past.

And to be honest, half the time you go to a stadium gig, you’re looking at the screens to either side of the stage because the band are microdots – so this isn’t all that different.

Except the song order is the same every night; 22 songs, most of the hits with a few new ones so that you buy the ABBA Voyage album – most of them are sung by the avatars but a few are videos that surround you on three sides of the big hall.

And one or two are just the house band to give the avatars the chance to enjoy a rest.