ABBA – Living a Second Life

ABBA, a Swedish pop group of the 1970s, is able to perform live in London after its forty-year absence, thanks to the metaverse technology.  

The days of singing and grooving along to “dancing queen” in the 70s are not over yet. ABBA, a Swedish group formed in 1972, had immense global success. Comprising group members Agneta Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson at Björn Ulvaeus, the group dissolved in 1982 and decided to never tour again. However, Industrial Light & Magic, a technology created by the Star Wars VFX company, allowed the ABBA music group to try something that has never been done before.

The ABBA VOYAGE show, which premiered on May 2022 in London, is a spectacle that one can only see to believe. After a nearly forty-year absence, everyone surely had “the time of (their) life” as Agneta,  Anni-Frid, Benny, and Björn took the virtual stage in their 1970s prime. It is every futurist’s dream event for what this means for the entertainment industry, where music and the artistes can forever be immortalized.

How was this achieved?

Having evolved into a persistent digital reality, the metaverse has enabled us to share our experiences and work collaboratively and interact with others in the virtual sphere. As interactive and experiential as the real world, the metaverse stimulates every sense we have and allows for a kind of accessibility that only the digital world can provide as well as ends all the limitations that the real world may hold. Previously, metaverse experiences were restricted to the need of investing and wearing virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) headsets, and interacting with other avatars online, while sitting at home. However, companies have long been seeing this aspect as limiting is not helping them avail of mass-market opportunities.

The ABBA voyage is a live show, where concertgoers, as they do for other music concerts, purchase tickets, and attend the show in person. The accompanying band is also playing live, but the ABBA members’ performances have been pre-recorded and rendered as life-size humanoids on stage.

The band has been planning this concert since 2016. They performed in motion capture suits, which scanned each of their movements and facial expressions for a period five weeks. Hundreds of visual effects artists and animators then created avatars of the band in their youth, named “Abba-tars”. With the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI), they were able to “de-age” the band. This sort of technological scale is very different from holograms which are not nearly as life-like.

The effects and pixel quality as well the depth make it hard to distinguish between reality and the digital sphere. The concert, therefore, is not simply a visual spectacle, as some mistakenly believe, but is rather an experience that tugs at your emotions and lets you relive the actual concert experience.

The ABBA Voyage Experience

As the concert starts, the four singers in their humanoid form emerge from beneath the stage in an electrifying performance, with dance routines identical to what they did in the 70s. The virtual avatars never leave center stage, but effects like laser beams and enhanced music through precision drills allow for magical performances. The performers also change outfits making it more surreal.

Various classics like ‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Thank You For the Music’ had fans reminiscing the good-old days. Fans were also glad that the two songs released last year, ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, and ‘I Still Have Faith in You’, were in the setlist as they really show the ABBA’s journey. Some popular songs like ‘Money Money Money’ did not make the cut, but that is likely to encourage repeat visits from their fans who were amazed by this unique show, which is expected to run until the end of the year.

What does the future for music in the metaverse look like?

Various pop artistes have been holding fully virtual concerts such as Ariana Grande and The Weeknd, which are increasingly becoming popular. Moreover, in 2012 at Coachella, fans were shocked to see Tupac performing as he had been killed at a drive-by shooting 16 years before. But here he was alive as ever on the stage in a CGI holographic form. Michael Jackson was also brought back to life in 2014 for a performance. Holograms have limitations, however, as they block light and certain effects they do not appear entirely realistic.

As ABBA showed, technology is a lot more complex now where AI has made everything so much more lifelike. Such avatars are able to simulate human-like movements in real-time, based on real muscle, fat, and skin contact. What made Voyage more real was that it was no posthumous show and the artistes themselves were involved. And their legacy is now enhanced and secured for fans to enjoy even when the members pass.

Not every group has the power that ABBA holds as a time-less band, so it is speculated that this kind of concert will not be too mainstream. Moreover, such a concert is also extremely expensive as Voyage needs to make hundreds of millions in dollars to just break-even. While it seems that digital avatars will definitely grow in popularity, it will be interesting to see how much animators and visual artists can push on the concept to further expand the metaverse.