Hi everybody, welcome back to the channel.
Today I'm going to be doing my full in-depth review of Abba Voyage.
If you haven't seen Abba Voyage, turn this video off, do not watch it.
It's full of spoilers the show.
Other go into great detail about every song and every little detail from the show.
So if you haven't watched Abba Voyage yet, do not watch this video.
I've made five pages of notes all about my experience of the show.
and the in-depth look of the show as well and so we've got a lot of content to
cover of course and if you have seen Abba Voyage let's re-live it together
it's just been it today's a week since I went to see Abba Voyage I went to on
the 14th of July 2022 and it was the greatest concert I've ever been to full No, no argument there.
I went to see Jeff Lindy Lo back in 2018 and up until a week ago that was still the greatest concert I've ever seen.
And in terms of a live performance,
that is still the greatest concert I've ever seen because Abba Voyage, although it is a live experience, it's not live in terms of Abba.
are not there performing themselves, but it is the spirit of ABBA within the ABBA TARS themselves being there.
But definitely in terms of production,
lighting, visual and including the live band and the performance of the ABBA No argument that that's the best concept I've ever seen.
I'm going to talk about when you go into the arena itself,
what happens, what happens during the show of course, what was happening around me in terms of what was experiencing with the audience around me.
and also what happens when you leave the arena.
I don't think I've said this but I know that many people have said it that the arena doesn't look massive
but once you're in front of it is his colossal it is huge.
I've never seen anything like it.
It's just indescribable how big and how glorious it looks from the outside.
Once you're in front of it, it's just there.
I know I say that a lot on this channel.
And when you walk into the arena, once had your ticket scanned, you're allowed to go into the foyer.
There's a bar in the middle of the foyer, a shop to your left, a shop to your right, and there's also two cloak rooms.
As you go into the foyer, there's classic rock-and-pop songs playing.
I remember when I was at one of the merch stands,
Wonderwall by Oasis was playing which I thought was a bit of an odd inclusion,
seeing as it's not really music from around Abba's time as an original band, but nice to hear lots of different music being played.
And then as you go through to the auditorium,
as you go through the doors into whichever area you need to go to,
enominous folk-like music playing,
and it's quite spooky at first,
very eerie and they've got little snippets of abbasongs in there that have been put through filters and I remember hearing a
little bit of a little snippet of gimme gimme gimme that was sort of a bit
muffled so it sounds a bit different so it's not instantly recognizable.
to someone walking in and then as you walk into the arena it's very gray
it's not black it's very gray and obviously it can't be pitch black because you need
to be able to see to where you're going to sit but it's just there's only a very
few amount of lights I'm very dim but of course you have the light coming from
the state Scandinavian forest and it starts snowing at one point.
There's like a setting sun which is a light effect which has been created by two spotlights hitting the
screens and to make it look like the sun is setting and you also see little detail.
You see a little deer running through the forest.
And you also see a figure walking through the forest on a quest,
the character that we'll talk about in much more depth later,
and then the lights go down and I don't know whether it was a live recording,
whether it's a pre-recorded that's the same every night, but there was a man that came.
and said welcome to Abba Voyage and to keep the mystery of Voyage alive we ask you not to film
and to put all mobile or recording devices away and if you are caught filming or photographing the show you'll be able to leave.
And this just made a much better concert experience.
especially for me, but I'm guessing for everyone around me as well.
Of course I would have loved to take a or a short video as a of my visit to Abba Voyage,
but the show is identical every night.
You like my friend Abba Diego points out you're not going to see Freda slipping over
on one show it's exactly the same every night so that's why it just provided a much better content experience.
I'm going to show you a video that I shot at a concert of Lewis Capaldi a few weeks ago and as you can see in the video
there are thousands of phones
this concert but at Abba Voyage it was just what was happening on stage nobody had a phone out
I think I saw maybe one two at most mobile phones out that night and they were quickly put away
and then Skoll Gang by Benny Anderson starts playing a really beautiful piece of music,
very good choice of skullgang for that,
but very much sets the mood of the show,
it very much works with that Scandinavian forest that's being shown as you walk into the auditorium,
and then those screens come down, and then lights begin to whiz all around you.
They're not projected lights, they're part of these screens that are of the concert and really quiet, shocking at first to see.
And then our heroes appear at Abba, the Abba Tars emerge from a trapdoor in the stage, all the silhouettes.
oh my god moment of the show,
when they're coming up out the stage, you could see their arms sort of gently moving, you know, person can't stand totally still.
And that was when I thought the amount of work that's coming to this is immense.
And of course the opening song, I was so happy to see this.
I've personally been thinking that this song would be the opening song for the Amber Voyage concert which I'm going to see in
I just think it would be a really good introduction,
really dramatic opening with a spotlight on the,
well it's not a hologram but the virtual presence or what everyone thought of as Frida and then during the course of
the cracking up all the people,
the rest of the band coming in and the lives, people behind them, it's really good coming in I think.
Obviously that's just my opinion.
So I originally predicted this back in November 2021 when I did my visitors 40th anniversary album.
And a lot of people were saying,
I would love to see the visitors as the opening,
but I don't think it's very realistic because it's not a song that many people know as such as the head and party crowd will call them,
the casual person that goes to the show to see what it's like.
And it's just not a song that you'd associate with Abba, when you say Abba, the casual person doesn't think of the visitors.
They think it's like Mia or Dancing Queen or the Winnesdays at all, for example.
So I was so happy when I heard this.
And they sort of set it to the drumbeat that happens as the song progresses a bit in the verses
because I think if they'd just had these whirring synthesized sounds and freeders vocal, I don't think it would have worked.
So it's just Frida Silhouette that appears on stage and you can see her arms moving around very gracefully as she sings these opening lines and then
of course in the chorus all four governments have brought out their Silhouettes.
The costumes that they're wearing during this song is these sort of peacock outfits that I think they've been described.
They're the voyage program that I have here.
I have, I think, I think there's a photo of it in here.
Yes, you can see they're the costumes that they're wearing in the opening number and there's a bit in the new voyage
trailer where you can see Frida moving her arms a bit and that's from the visitor's instrumental break.
and then after that they go into the second verse of the song which I wasn't
expecting them to do I was expecting the song to be very much cut short and then
go back into the chorus but now I was really glad to see that they included the second verse.
then back into the chorus, then into another instrumental break with a dance routine and that's where the song ends.
It doesn't go back into the chorus.
We have a bit of a cold ending here and all the band take off their
Peacock capes and I saw that Agnettian Frieda whipped theirs off but I didn't,
I didn't, I wasn't watching how Denny and Bjorn took theirs off.
As soon as that song ends,
Denny's on that mic and shouts hello London and it's straight into the second song which is, Hole in Your Soul.
I don't think anybody expected this song to be in the same.
I think it was we were getting three or four songs from our buddy album and most people were predicting to see take a chance on me
and definitely not holding your soul.
But thinking about it now,
it makes total sense to have that song there because it was of course used as the closing song on Abba's very last tour.
So it sort of brings this whole and it's really nice to see this.
I was surprised at how many people were dancing along to this song because,
like I said, this hen party crowd of casual people who go to the show rather than the apophanatics who buy jumpers like this.
They of course would know all the lyrics,
but I was surprised at how many people weren't just looking at each other saying one earth is this song I've never heard this before
and lots of people were dancing and I saw a lot of people singing along which I was very surprised at and
I don't know whether anybody else has noticed this it might just be me going a bit insane
I noticed that Agneta's vocals seem louder in this mix than the other band members.
Agneta's vocals are a lot more prominent.
You can really pick them out separately.
But in the bridge of the song, the quiet a bit of the song, there's some really nice and new unheard vocal harmonies from freedom.
There's a cold ending to this song which is not the same as the 1979-1980 tour with the big increasing crochet.
it sort of goes back to the opening lines and very much just cuts it off very
suddenly which is a really nice ending and works really well.
Then there's a blackout of the crowd and Benny appears,
he walks out from a shadow onto a spotlight,
you can see the rest of the band's output glittering in the background a bit because of this light and Benny paraphrases Hamlet the
William Shakespeare play and says to be or not to be and he puts his hand sort of out like Hamlet holding the skull.
Then he says, that is no longer the question.
And he talks to the crowd for a bit about how triumphant Abba's return finally is.
And then he quotes, thank you for the music and says, without a song or a dance, what are we?
That is now the question.
And then he goes over to his piano and plays a little bit of the East End as the
Intune classic British soap opera which is a reference to where the arena is
situated in Stratford in London and then goes into SOS of course.
You've probably all seen the sneak peek video of SOS from the premiere night of Voyage which was so great to see.
see the crowd singing along so passionately to that song and then
That song ends and then we get a video interlude of knowing me knowing you and they have these sort
of glass reflectors on the band that sort of cuts off half their face and then you have a
The husband or wife of the particular Abbott member and this very much fits in with the just an ocean single sleeve
Which people said was very reminiscent of the 1978 era of Abbott
But it's really nice to see this continued in the actual voyage show
itself Knowing me knowing you has the same cold ending that we're all familiar with from the 1979-1980
and then there's another blackout and the band returns stage goes straight into Chikitita.
I really surprised at how lively the crowd were reacting to Chikitita.
Everybody was swaying their arms in unison to this song,
which sort of reminds me of TV appearances that Apple had in the 70s where people would sway their arms to different Apple songs.
And this was set against an eclipse behind the Avatar.
First it is a setting sun and then this sort of planet moves in front of the sun and at the very end of the song it turns into the
eclipse that we see on the ice still our faith in you single cover which is of
course the very first image we've got of our
the 26th of August last year which was really nice to see a reference to that
of course in the show and then we have a bit of speech from Frida and I was
really delighted to see Frida talking to the crowd because I know that she obviously spoke to the crowd on the 1979 tour.
Frida talks to the crowd about her grandmother,
she says that her grandmother helped to become the person that she is today and she says someone I think she'd be quite proud of which I
think got a lot of people in the crowd and she calls her grandmother her own heroine
her on to never stopping her from fulfilling her dream.
and then she dedicates the next song to her which is Fernando.
During Fernando we see Agnietta and Frieda on the screens behind the band and a green light that fills the stage.
And then there's another blackout and this blackout lasts for quite a while.
Then he talks to the crowd.
and asks the audience to excuse the band while they change costumes which is
quite amusing and there's a bit of an exchange between Benny and Björn fighting over a mirror.
I'm saying Björn move out the way I need to see my costume and Björn says I do look good don't I and then he says alright let's get this
over with him I wasn't even a fan of this costume the first time we had
and the band come back on stage wearing their classic velvet jumpsuits from 1975-1976 era.
But this time they have each member's name emblazoned across the chest in rhinestones it looks like.
And we actually got a glimpse of this stage outfit way before The Voyage premiere in the music video for Hey Grand Old Man,
the song that Bjorn did for Thomas Leiden's birthday.
And as soon as they come on stage, Benny counts in 1, 2, 3, 4 and it's straight into Mamma Mia.
And during the first chorus, the band leave the stage and the...
begins, continuing the whole song, which is really nice to see.
Bjorn appears to the crowd and asks the audience what they think of the band that are situated to the left of the stage.
I wasn't too sure whether the band would be situated across the stage,
but as Bobby's brother said in his question and answer video about Amber Voyage,
having the band on stage amongst the Abattara action would not be possible at all.
It would totally take away from the feeling of reality get from seeing the Abattara's which we will talk about.
I expected the band really to be spread across the stage amongst the Aptars, amongst the action, like it would be at a true concert.
However, the more I thought about it, I realised it's not really possible since the Avatar
action is so immersive and spread across throughout the space that, logistically and technically, it wouldn't be possible to mix the real band into it.
Your asks what they think of the band,
of the crowd react well and he says he wanted to call the band,
he wanted to name them after the DLR station is opposite the aberina called Puddingmill Lane and then he says they didn't like it.
it and then he says we're going to use the band in this next song which is Does
Your Mother Know and Bjorn sings the opening lines of this song and he sings you're so hot he's
in me so you're blue but you can't take a chance on a chick like you and then he leaves the stage
which I was a bit disappointed that I would have loved to see him do a bit more of the
song because the band then come on stage.
rest of the song for themselves, which a really nice way of doing it.
And there's a band introduction there,
but I would have loved to see Bjorn do at least one chorus of it and then leave the stage,
or maybe just at least an entire verse and then leave the stage.
But while the band are doing their introduction there's a long instrumental section.
This is nice touchy ends with a snippet of the early unused piano solo from Doja Mother Now,
which is a bit slowed down than the original version, but I was really, really liked to see that that was in there.
And then there's another blackout and we have the first short film of the show following
the quest of Rora as she finds an ancient artifact and this is set to the song Eagle.
I wasn't a massive fan when I first heard that there was going to be short films in the
show rather than Avatar Action on stage,
but after seeing it, it worked so well and I think it fitted nicely where it was in the show.
The effect of this Raw or character was done by having a live actress.
do this in a studio and then that's been adapted into a drawing for the
audience to watch as the short film and this very much reminded me of the character from the movement,
but the character of Aurora,
as well as reminded me as a character from the movements,
it reminded me also of Frida,
this character of a strong independent woman,
questing to find what she's looking for,
and this short film ended on a bit of a cliffhanger,
I believe with Aurora in the middle of a quest,
which is then continued later,
and at the end of Eagle there was a complete blackout,
complete darkness across the whole arena,
and then there's loads of glazes projected right out across the arena, and this is with like very haunting gospel-like vocals.
backing singers singing the melody of lay all your love on me and then we see
the hand from the don't shut me down single cover reach out and touch the
screen and then that is free to hand as we all know much of the video used
in lay all of on me can be seen in the Voyage trailer,
so when you see the show you'll probably be familiar with that segment more than any other part of the show.
and then towards the end of the song there's quite a big instrumental break
where there is an overhead view of Agnetturum Frida and the whole band
but they're looking up at this camera I say that's above them
and then it sort of pans down slowly like that and you see the front view
and that quickly transitions into Sommenite City and the polar mountains
that were used of course on the 1979 and 1980 tour they quickly shoot out
across the back screen and reach right into the corners of the crowd
and that was the moment me and my mum my mum was sat next to me when we were watching the show
and we just looked at each other and went wow we hadn't seen anything ever like that
that was really really impressive and you could just see the crowd sort of jump back and react to that.
I everybody felt the same when they saw that it was just amazing.
Then Gimme Gimme Gimme follows that straight after that.
That was very energetic, loads of people were up on their seats.
During Gimme Gimme there is a dance break in which Frida has the long dance solo, which harkened back to the 1979 tour.
Of course we see that in the Abba Live in Concert film from 1979,
but this also reminded me of the Little Things video, which was obviously mostly a publicity campaign for the Abba Voyage show.
But there is a part where all the children are learning how to dance like Frida in that dance solo from Gimme Gimme Gimme.
So it was really nice to see that and it made me wonder about the Abovage connections and harkening back
to the original Arbor Days in the 1970s.
And I should say for most of the concert I had been standing up and singing along to the show.
And it was at the end of Gimme Gimme Gimme that a man behind me just tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I could sit down,
He was very polite and I was very polite back to him.
I didn't want to taint his view of the show.
and then that's when the second,
it was actually a good point to tell me to sit down because the second short film was about to come on a vule vu and this
continues Rawra's quest as she approaches a large ancient chamber and I
Jews out on a walk into the place and I noticed them and I thought well that's
quite a strange statue and then when I came out the arena I was like oh because
it was the tiger in the panther that are on the classic Abba costumes from 1975.
It was, of course, the blue panther and the yellow tiger that we're using on Netta and Frieda's outfits from 1975.
And thought, oh, that's a very nice touch.
That's a really good Easter egg in the show there.
And as Aurora enters this large chamber, let's call it, great busts of the ABBA members that come in and sort of face each other.
She sort of reminded me of like Greek gods old meeting up and seeing Aurora place this
artifact that she'd found in the first short film.
She placed it in their sort of puzzle that was missing a piece.
And this is when she got shot up into the air.
statue busts she transformed into a glittering silhouette and that's the end of
the Aurora story that follows throughout the show and then there's a black out
after that and The Aptars walk back on stage in glittering dresses and shirts,
that of course we first saw in the I Still Are Faith in new video,
and Frieda sings the opening lines off when all is said and done,
Acapella, and soon into the first verse, the rest of the band and the Aptars join in with backing vocals and the instrumentation.
The Aptars appear on rounded disc screens that come right out into the crowd and there's a projection of each ABAP member.
I there's two or maybe four that go out into the crowd and it's the ABAP member's revolving which is a
really nice touch and it hearkens back to
the methods used in Lassie Haldstrom's music videos for Apple when he had
them standing in a flower pot in videos like Happy New Year and No Me Knowing You and
so I thought that was a really nice touch to have that there and I was so
happy to know that this was the full length version of When All In The with the repeat of the first verse at the end.
This has only been previously available on bootlegs,
but I was looking around on YouTube earlier today for the full length version,
and it's only available in very low quality,
but there was a version uploaded of that same demo version only a days ago, and it's got HD sound.
It's been cut straight from the tape, and I'll link that here.
It's from a channel called Abba Fan 7221.
So after when all is said and done,
Agnietta talks to the crowd, and says how great it was to record another album after 40 years apart.
This speech made me wonder a bit about when A bit of speech from Magneto was recorded because when the first two songs were recorded,
I still have faith in you and don't shut me down, it was only going to be those two songs.
And I don't think recording more songs resumed until 2019.
And so could this snippet have been recorded during the voyage sessions when
they just decided to do another album and they could add that into the voyage concert while our net is talking to the crowd.
I also meant If Agnetta herself had acted this out in the motion capture suit, could other voyage songs have been recorded for the show?
Just there's a possibility and if Agnetta has said recording an album not these two new songs that are featured in the show,
could other songs have been
done and maybe added later on into the show as a later setlist but there's a
bit in this speech which made me took me out of the show for a minute.
It took me out of this trance that I was in where I felt that these are out there on the
stage and because I've never sort of react to the crowd's reaction.
of them cheering because she says how nice it was to record an album after 40 years and the crowd,
when I saw it, they reacted to that and they applauded and they were cheering.
she reacts to that and laughs and says thank you very much and it just made me
wonder that could go wrong on one night and take a lot of people out of the
reality of the show because they may not react to that one night and she's going
to be laughing and saying thank you
nothing's happened really and it just it just made me realise just for a split second that I wasn't watching a real person on stage.
Moving on from that she introduces the next song and asks the crowd to please not shut her down and
she goes straight into don't shut me down and I was so excited to see this song live
of all the songs in the setlist that I knew were going to be in there.
This was the song that I was most excited.
And just because of course we knew why still our faith and new party looked like as the Appetars performed it,
but this song would seem nothing as well as the rest of the songs featured,
but this And the visitors are the only two abbasongs and when all are said and done,
sorry, are the only two abbasongs in the show who have never been performed live.
So I was really excited to see this.
And three large sort of sheets came down and acted as video screens.
You had Agnetta performing with a close-up of her face on one side and freed her on the other.
But there was also a third screen in the middle that I wasn't really sure why it was there
because it didn't have any projection of Abba on it.
It was sort of blocking the avatars really.
I stood up and was dancing to this song,
but I moved out of the way of this person that told me to sit down earlier because I didn't want to taint his view of the show.
So I moved out of his way so he could still see.
But he shouted, I could hear him shouting during the first verse, and if you want to dance, go and stand on the dance floor.
Instead of a worrying about this man behind me.
instead of watching what was happening on stage,
I looked out into the crowd and I could see,
I wanted to see how people were reacting to this song more than any other, and there were people singing every word.
It was so nice to see people singing along to every word of the new Abba song.
They knew it as an abasong.
They didn't know it as the new abasong.
They knew it as an abasong that was mixed in with the rest of the abasongs featured in the setlist,
which was so nice to see.
And then after that goes straight into I still have.
which, as many people have said, is just an extended version of the music video.
mine is all the scrapbook moments of Abba from the 1970s and 1980s,
and I was looking mostly at the screens at the side of the stage for this song,
and because I wanted to see if the Abatars have been
and worked on since September and because of them being featured in the I
Still Are Faith in New Video and they have been and there's a bit at the end of the video where Frida,
the very last line of the song, do I have it?
and she's looking out out into the crowd and in the video you could sort of see her eyes moving
around in a quite an unnatural way showing which I could see it was part of this appetite thing
and but I was looking at that very same shot on the screen and it had improved it was it looked
so natural so realistic so the amount of work that's gone
into to the show even since it was announced is incredible and this part you'd expect the avatars to leave the stage but they didn't.
They started talking to each other and were reminiscing about the Eurovision phone content.
which was very amusing because Agnietto was saying how she remembered that Bjorn had to stand
upon the bus to the Brighton Dome because he couldn't sit down because his costume was so
tight and then he says let's look at some old footage.
They all say in unison let's take you back to Eurovision Song Contest 1974 and then of course they crashed straight into Waterloo.
This is which was one of my disappointments of the show that I didn't get to see them perform Waterloo Live.
It has a mainstream Amazon,
it's definitely my favourite,
one of the best greatest hit in my opinion and it was,
I was disappointed not to be able to see it live but I did enjoy watching all the various TV appearances of them performing Waterloo.
And I was expecting it to be mainly your vision, top of the pops, and various other TV appearances from 1974.
But it went right up until Aber in Japan, which I was really surprised to see.
Then I think it was for the last chorus, the appertards appear back on stage, and they sing the last chorus.
They costumes into the Dolce &
and then Benny gets his accordion,
and plays the introduction to Thank You for the Music,
and the band joining later on that song, and it was really nice to see so many people linking arms in the crowd.
I saw a of people cry during this song,
and during the last part where Agnetes says I am the girl with golden hair,
a lot of people started cheering during that bit, which was quite amusing to see.
And then at the very end of that song,
Rorca's applause of course,
and Benny gets straight on his piano and they get him to dancing queen,
everybody in the auditorium stood up and was dancing to that song.
But it was so nice to see people just enjoying themselves and to one of the world's most recognisable songs.
I can't remember whether they leave the stage or not,
there's a bit of silence after the applause stops and I can get to just
of the winner takes it all completely acapella but on the word talk the piano
starts and the track begins and then after that song the avatars leave the
stage the same way they entered by going down through this trap door but this
time they're backed by a choir and I wasn't too sure whether these were
actual people or whether they were avatars themselves as well and then
the wings as modern day ABBA and this is the only time I could tell that they
weren't real people because it hadn't been done as motion capture.
It had been done on a blue screen so it was just a video of ABBA rather than the motion
capture ABBA TARS and as soon as they walked on stage I could see a bit of pixelation.
There was only that tiny tiny bit and then it was just modern day ABBA on the stage.
This is my rating of ABBA Voyage 100 out of 10.
There's nothing wrong with this show.
Absolutely, it's just perfect.
I know I've complained a bit and give a bit of criticism,
but as fans and as the apophanatics that we all are, I think we're entitled to it.
could decide what we love most and these video interludes Diego and made a good point that
possibly some of the avatar technology isn't quite ready yet and in the future possibly
the it'll just be a straight avatar set apart from the two short films they will stay as they
are and then the the the songs that are just video interludes so knowing me knowing you mamma mia Waterloo, what else is there?
There's a layer you'll love on me.
I as the time goes on I think possibly these will become fully Avatar songs.
As you walk out of the arena, Ode to Freedom plays in the which was the perfect choice.
And initially I thought that that would play as we left the arena.
When I first heard it back in November I thought that would be a good way not to hear them do it live
but to see that that be played as we leave the auditorium and leave the arena itself.
And As we left the arena, we walked out and the sun was beginning to set.
It about half nine at night and I looked back at the arena
and completely forgot that the Abilogo would light up in beautiful different colours at night
because it lights up in a sort of purple during the daytime.
which is quite faint, but as you walk out of the arena it's bright rainbow colours which is really nice.
And there you have it, that is my complete review of Abba Voyage.
Please tell me what you thought of your experience of Abba Voyage down in the comments and if I've missed anything,
please tell me because I'd love to pin your comments so other people can read them.
And as always, thank you for watching and if you haven't seen Voyage yet.
Thank you all for watching.