Björn Again and Again and Again

NAB

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that ABBA is back — and have a heart of stone not to feel nostalgia for the innocence of their pop.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/bjorn-again-and-again-and-again/

Following last week’s announcement of the Swedish band’s new music and a virtual concert that will take place in May next year, the band is also giving fans more details about how their virtual alter-egos have been created.

The “ABBAtars” have been created by more than 100 digital artists and technicians from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Four of ILM’s five global studios are dedicated to the project, with anywhere from 500 to 1,000 artists working on it.

The foursome was filmed using motion capture as they performed a 22-song set over the course of five weeks. ILM then “de-aged” Benny, Björn, Agnetha, and Anni-Frid, taking them back to 1979.

“They got on a stage in front of 160 cameras and almost as many genius [digital] artists, and performed every song in this show to perfection, capturing every mannerism, every emotion, the soul of their beings — so that becomes the great magic of this endeavor. It is not four people pretending to be ABBA: It is actually them,” producer Ludvig Andersson explained in a video posted on YouTube.

In a video posted by The Guardian, Ben Morris, ILM Creative Director, said, “We create ABBA in their prime. We are creating them as digital characters and will be using performance capture techniques to animate them, perform them, and make them look perfectly real.”

Well, no, this isn’t the real thing, but there’s good reason for the digital reworking. The global appetite among ABBA fans old and new to see them perform live would be overwhelming — a tour the septuagenarian multi-millionaires would see as too exhausting. This way they can be Björn again and again and again.

Benny Andersson came up with the term ABBAtars a few years ago, with the original concept of creating holograms. The actual digital concert experience, referred to as “Voyage,” will use a pre-recorded performance of ABBA in their mocap suits which, using an updated version of a Victorian theatre trick called “peppers ghost,” will project them onto a transparent screen. A 10-piece band accompanying the virtual avatars, however, will be performing remotely in real time.

The experience will launch next May at a custom-built 3000 seat arena in London on the site of London 2012 Olympics.

In a statement released by the band, they explain that “the main inspiration to record again comes from our involvement in creating the strangest and most spectacular concert you could ever dream of. We’re going to be able to sit back in an audience and watch our digital selves perform our songs.”

 “We simply call it ‘Voyage’ and we’re truly sailing in uncharted waters. With the help of our younger selves, we travel into the future. It’s not easy to explain but then it hasn’t been done before.”