We made the trek to the Olympic Park from Waterloo station relatively easily and grabbed a burger and a beer before going in to the Arena.
Inside there were further food and drink and merchandise outlets, as well as toilets and complimentary cloakrooms.
Our particular event had been hijacked by Radio 2 and turned into a Children In Need benefit and Scott Mills was holding a DJ session in the pre-Arena area, which made it pretty crowded, but passed a few minutes before we dropped off our coats and headed into the Dance Floor area.
The venue has a fairly small floor level area and 3 seated areas behind. It's not a massive venue, but it's a good sized one.
As we went in an animation of a snowy forest was playing on mesh screens dropped down in front of us and this continued for around 45 minutes until an announcement that the event was about to begin.
Flashing vertical white lights heralded things and then the 4 virtual members of ABBA appeared (seemingly) from the floor of the stage.
The first two song, "The Visitors" and "Hole In Your Sole" were relatively obscure ones, I guess they work you in gently as you're still trying to work out what is happening on the 'stage' and how they are doing it.
Things definitely hit their stride with "SOS" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You" ("Ah ha!" as Alan Partridge would say), followed by the gentler, more melodic, but still familiar "Chiquitita" and "Fernando".
The performance makes clever use of lighting, huge, almost wrap around, screens, a live band and, of course, the "ABBAtars".
They are mostly the size you would expect to see people on a stage and, as such the detail isn't too clear. Once or twice I recall thinking the movements looked a little stiff (like computer game characters), but more often I marvelled at the natural little actions that I would have felt extremely difficult to replicate, a flick of the hair, a half turn, it was remarkable at times and a credit to the people who put this all together.
Photography and Videoing is forbidden on pain of expulsion, so here's an approved video about ABBA Voyage to give a taste of it
Throughout, too, the ABBAtars were projected in large scale onto screens either side of the stage and, now and then looked a little CGI'd, but at times the detail was so good that I feel convinced that some of the content must have been based upon high quality film footage from the 70s and 80s.
However it was done, it was very impressive and it was hard at times not to feel you were watching people perform live in front of you.
The band were good, getting a turn to perform when they performed most of Does Your Mother Know without the ABBAtars.
They were absent too, for a couple of songs, when an animation of an Aztec-looking person took on a fantasy journey to a castle where the images of the band members were hewn in rock. It was different and a reminder that you weren't at a live concert, but an audio-visual show.
The lighting played a big part in this.
At one point lines of dotted lights showed on the 'stage' over and behind the ABBAtars, while rods of lights descended over the audience, echoing the lights on stage and giving the impression of an extension of one place. One another song, beams of red lights over the dance floor area did likewise.
The song that started it all, "Waterloo" was shown in the form of archive film footage, projected on the mesh screens ahead of the stage again.
That said, it was genuinely quite hard not to react, in the most part, as if you were seeing and hearing live performers on the stage.
All 4 ABBAtars had a little chat with the audience and they even appeared as they do now briefly at the end to thank us for coming.
The main 'set' ended with "Dancing Queen" and then they were quickly 'back' for an encore featuring "The Winner Takes It All" (probably my favourite ABBA song, they do melancholy very well I think).
We left, both very happy we'd come along.
However, on the way home we agreed there seemed little point going again. It's not a live gig, the next time will be the same.
It is, though, a great technical feat and an enjoyable experience - Go and see it, even if you're not an ABBA fan, there is plenty to enjoy!
Setlist:
The Visitors
Hole in Your Soul
SOS
Knowing Me, Knowing You
Chiquitita
Fernando
Mamma Mia
Does Your Mother Know
Take a Chance on Me
Eagle
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
Voulez-vous
Don’t Shut Me Down
I Still Have Faith in You
Waterloo
Thank You for the Music
Money, Money, Money
Dancing Queen
Encore:
The Winner Takes It All
