VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEE

At the outset, let me remind one and all that I am an old man. And that even though I have been seduced by much of the music of the 70s, I did not get there until the late 90s… and that when I refer to the music of the 70s, I mean Billy Joel, Randy Newman, Elton John, Melanie, Leonard Cohen and… well, that’s about it. ABBA did not make my list.

I have never seen Mama Mia, although I have heard the song. I can even hum the first four notes. I am vaguely aware of Dancing Queen, mostly because it is referenced in a Randy Newman lyric in his song Christmas in Cape Town, and I sort of recognized Fernando when I finally heard it played again the other evening at a built for the occasion stadium on the outskirts of downtown London.

Did I not mention at the outset that this comes to you direct from London and not my usual warm island? I am here at my wife’s request, celebrating a significant birthday on her behalf. We are seeing shows, visiting with our English friends, and reacquainting ourselves (post-COVID) with the restaurants and clubs we have always enjoyed in the past.

One of those shows was ABBA Voyage… and it is a trip. Somehow this rock n’ roll group from the late 70s got a lot of folks to put up north of a hundred million dollars to build a stadium and create a virtual reality concert that portends something ominous. There, on huge screens that wrap around a good portion of the arena, are the now nearly octogenarian rockers, digitally modified to look pretty much the way they did 40 years ago, minus that elusive something that is an essential part of personality.

On the stage are the fully decked-out rockers in the flesh… or are they? Calling them as I see them, and with my limited vocabulary in this idiom, they are something like holograms, apparently created by George “Star Wars” Lucas and his Industrial Light & Magic Company.

These avatars rock, roll, sing, and take an occasional “break” to intro a song or make a “joke” about how they are pleased to be looking so young for their age. This, I fear, is what show business is going to be like if the Writers’ strike goes on much longer.

It also makes you wonder if in the future Baz Luhrmann will be able to get financing for a film such as Elvis while introducing such a spectacular talent as Austin Butler in the title role. Why bother when one could simply electronically reproduce the “original?”

I hate to party poop and will not go on about the plastic Disney-like quality of the music itself. Instead, I will note that the audience… and there are thousands of them in this “theatre” … seem to love what they are seeing and hearing. They dance, they wave their arms (do they think they are at a Queen concert?) and they sing along. They are having a very good time, and don’t seem to mind at all the price tag which translates to something close to $200 per ticket…. For a movie without a plot.

In fairness, it is a very state of the art kinda flick, although the state of this art in 2023 is far from perfected. Still, it is impressive. As to what the future will bring, an ABBA lyric just may say it all:

How the brave new world arrives/ and I see how it thrives/ in the ashes of our lives.

 

Barney Rosenzweig