(Orlando FL; Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center) This show had been marketed as a "tribute" show to ABBA, but it felt like we were watching the original Swedish act from the 70's on that Walt Disney Theatre stage tonight in Orlando.
Walking up the sidewalk toward Dr. Phillips I was passing dozens of concert-goers decked out in shiny, heavily-sequin covered costumes, with some wearing big puffy headpiece wigs making it feel like we're going back to the era of disco. There was a pretty broad age spectrum on attendees, with some young grade-school kids finding their seats a few seats over from me, up to some silver-haired and enthusiastic patrons taking selfie photos with the stage behind them in the background.
Emerging shortly after 8p, 10 musicians walked out onto the stage, with the 2 main female vocalists quickly taking the center, immediately going into "Take A Chance On Me." Without pause, the band continued right into "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme". After the 2nd song, the lead vocalists thanked the audience for attending, introducing themselves as A Tribute to Abba, "directly from Sweden." They asked the audience if anyone recognized the significance of a 2024 tour for ABBA, to which a true fan yelled out "Waterloo!" Yes, it had been 50 years since the song that had initially put them onto the world map was released when it quickly rose to #1 within 2 weeks in the UK. The female singers stated that at the beginning of this tour as they were leaving Europe, that everyone had been celebrating ABBA back in Europe.
They then went into their medley of Mamma Mia songs which drew immediate recognition from the multi-generational crowd given the relatively recent popularity of the Mamma Mia movies (2008 and 2018). The lead vocalists then launched into their ABBA history lesson for the evening: the origin of the 'ABBA' name. Apparently, Bjorn (Ulvaeus) and Benny (Andersson) were already huge pop stars back in the 70's, when they decided that they should maybe include female vocals to their sound. That's when they decided to ask their girlfriends, Agnetha (Faltskog) and Anni-Frid (Lynstad), and the band bearing the abbreviation of their 1st names (ABBA) was begun. The singers go onto explain that the original members of ABBA were too old to tour these days, but that a digital show was coming to Vegas soon, which they jokingly stated would cause them to be out of jobs soon.
As we were approaching an hour into the show, the group proclaimed to the audience that it was Friday night and that they wanted to turn the show into a Swedish dance party. As the band was introduced one by one, they introduced the audience to stand up and dance. When the saxophone player skillfully ripped through his solo, everybody let out a collective scream and now we were getting some excitement from the audience, just in time for a 20 minute intermission.
Upon returning from intermission, the crowd had loosened up and more people were now standing when the band performed SOS... in Swedish! They indicated that they were hoping for a similar sing-along to the next song, that was not going to be in Swedish, and had only 1 word that the audience needed to remember: "Fernando". At this point, the crowd had completely loosened up and now randoms exuberant screams were coming from all sections of the theatre.
One of the female leads held up a copy of the Waterloo LP as she pointed out that a 5th person was actually featured on the 1974 album cover, who was Mike Watson. Watson was apparently onstage with us this evening, and had been touring with this group for years! How amazing!!!
All in all, the show last just under 2 hours, and was very entertaining. For any avid ABBA fans out there, I'm not really sure how you can get away with not watching this Tribute show do their thing. The vocalists were phenomenal, the instrumentalists recreated the background music almost identically, and the costumes brought back a ton of memories. I do wish that there were some more visuals / show clips projected within the theatre somewhere, but probably because of licensing issues, this wasn't going to be achievable. Regardless, this was a very fun show, and I'd highly advise that if you're seeking out a fun time surrounded by some terrific music, you'll definitely want to come check this show out!
Walking up the sidewalk toward Dr. Phillips I was passing dozens of concert-goers decked out in shiny, heavily-sequin covered costumes, with some wearing big puffy headpiece wigs making it feel like we're going back to the era of disco. There was a pretty broad age spectrum on attendees, with some young grade-school kids finding their seats a few seats over from me, up to some silver-haired and enthusiastic patrons taking selfie photos with the stage behind them in the background.
Emerging shortly after 8p, 10 musicians walked out onto the stage, with the 2 main female vocalists quickly taking the center, immediately going into "Take A Chance On Me." Without pause, the band continued right into "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme". After the 2nd song, the lead vocalists thanked the audience for attending, introducing themselves as A Tribute to Abba, "directly from Sweden." They asked the audience if anyone recognized the significance of a 2024 tour for ABBA, to which a true fan yelled out "Waterloo!" Yes, it had been 50 years since the song that had initially put them onto the world map was released when it quickly rose to #1 within 2 weeks in the UK. The female singers stated that at the beginning of this tour as they were leaving Europe, that everyone had been celebrating ABBA back in Europe.
They then went into their medley of Mamma Mia songs which drew immediate recognition from the multi-generational crowd given the relatively recent popularity of the Mamma Mia movies (2008 and 2018). The lead vocalists then launched into their ABBA history lesson for the evening: the origin of the 'ABBA' name. Apparently, Bjorn (Ulvaeus) and Benny (Andersson) were already huge pop stars back in the 70's, when they decided that they should maybe include female vocals to their sound. That's when they decided to ask their girlfriends, Agnetha (Faltskog) and Anni-Frid (Lynstad), and the band bearing the abbreviation of their 1st names (ABBA) was begun. The singers go onto explain that the original members of ABBA were too old to tour these days, but that a digital show was coming to Vegas soon, which they jokingly stated would cause them to be out of jobs soon.
As we were approaching an hour into the show, the group proclaimed to the audience that it was Friday night and that they wanted to turn the show into a Swedish dance party. As the band was introduced one by one, they introduced the audience to stand up and dance. When the saxophone player skillfully ripped through his solo, everybody let out a collective scream and now we were getting some excitement from the audience, just in time for a 20 minute intermission.
Upon returning from intermission, the crowd had loosened up and more people were now standing when the band performed SOS... in Swedish! They indicated that they were hoping for a similar sing-along to the next song, that was not going to be in Swedish, and had only 1 word that the audience needed to remember: "Fernando". At this point, the crowd had completely loosened up and now randoms exuberant screams were coming from all sections of the theatre.
One of the female leads held up a copy of the Waterloo LP as she pointed out that a 5th person was actually featured on the 1974 album cover, who was Mike Watson. Watson was apparently onstage with us this evening, and had been touring with this group for years! How amazing!!!
All in all, the show last just under 2 hours, and was very entertaining. For any avid ABBA fans out there, I'm not really sure how you can get away with not watching this Tribute show do their thing. The vocalists were phenomenal, the instrumentalists recreated the background music almost identically, and the costumes brought back a ton of memories. I do wish that there were some more visuals / show clips projected within the theatre somewhere, but probably because of licensing issues, this wasn't going to be achievable. Regardless, this was a very fun show, and I'd highly advise that if you're seeking out a fun time surrounded by some terrific music, you'll definitely want to come check this show out!
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