Digital avatars will allow Abba to tour again

Digital avatars will allow Abba to tour again
Matthew Moore, Media Correspondent
April 24 2018, 12:01am, The Times
Old Abba stars never retire, they just get digitally regenerated 40 years later to perform to a television audience of hundreds of millions around the globe.
Virtual “Abbatars” representing all four members of the Swedish pop group will be revealed for the first time this autumn at a show that could clear the way for other maturing artists to go on tour without leaving the comfort of their sofas.






The Abba star Björn Ulvaeus, 72, revealed event details during a speech in Brussels, promising a “global television moment” to rival the Eurovision Song Contest. The two-hour show is expected to be broadcast by the BBC in Britain and simulcast across the globe. A world tour will follow in 2019 or 2020, which industry insiders say could generate hundreds of millions of pounds in ticket sales.
Ulvaeus and his bandmates have been scanned using high-tech imaging equipment and “de-aged” to appear as they looked at their musical peak in 1979. “We thought we looked good that year,” Ulvaeus said.
Silicon Valley experts are using archive video footage to replicate how the band danced, dressed and sang so they can be programmed to perform classic Abba hits such as Waterloo, Mamma Mia and Dancing Queen.
The effect is “simply mind-boggling”, according to Ulvaeus. “You’ll hear the voices of Abba coming out of the mouths of the Abbatars,” he said. “You won’t be able to see that they’re not human beings. It’ll be spooky, I assure you, but great fun and no one has done it before.”
The television special is being produced by the American network NBC and sold across the world by BBC Studios, the national broadcaster’s commercial arm.
The technology has already been used to recreate Elvis and to help Narendra Modi address party rallies in India
Details of the show, including its location, are still under wraps but it is understood that other famous acts will perform Abba tributes before the Abbatars take to the stage to sing one classic track as the finale.
Abba sold more than 400 million albums but have not sung together since 1986, apart from at a private party in 2016. The four members — Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, 71, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 72, and Agnetha Faltskog, 68 — have resisted previous attempts to organise a reunion but gave their full consent to the Abbatar project, which has the potential to be hugely lucrative. If the technology is embraced by fans it will allow artists to stage concerts anywhere in the world without the trouble and expense of travelling. U2’s 360° tour in 2009-11 made a record £453 million, ahead of the Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang tour (£397 million in 2005-07) and Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams tour, which ended last year with total revenues of £396 million.
Virtual touring may prove particularly attractive to rockers of a certain vintage, such as Mick Jagger, 74. Promoters could also stage concerts long after their performers have died.

Ulvaeus said that “techno artists” from the US had scanned all four members of Abba last year. “They photographed us from all possible angles, they made us grimace in front of cameras, they painted dots on our faces, they measured our heads,” he told broadcasting executives last week. “Apparently, a cranium doesn’t change with age the way the rest of your body falls apart.”
The singer acknowledged an “existential dimension” to the project, as the band explored what it would be like to be young again: “The wisdom that we hopefully possess now in combination with the youth of the Abbatars.”
Musicians including Tupac and Michael Jackson have been brought back to life as holograms for one-off performances, to mixed reviews, but the technology behind the Abbatars is understood to be more advanced. It is being developed by XIX Entertainment, the company established by the British pop impresario Simon Fuller who launched the Spice Girls and the reality television show Pop Idol.


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