ABBA unveil striking new images of digital concert avatars for London shows

ABBA have revealed new, detailed images of their digital concert avatars – you can see them below.

Next month, a series of “revolutionary” concerts at London’s Queen Elizabeth Park will get underway, at which the Swedish pop legends will not be present in person, but instead represented by the avatars alongside a ten-piece live band put together by Klaxons’ James Righton and featuring synthpop star Little Boots.

The concerts are in support of ‘Voyage’, the band’s first album for 40 years, which arrived last November to rave-reviews; in a five-star write-up, Rolling Stone UK’s Darren Styles said: “‘Voyage’ is a majestic finish, both familiar and new – drawn, as ever was the case, from a range of musical influences miles wide in breadth and depth. It’s ABBA as they ever were, locked in period without apology or shame, and above all is a fitting finale.”

The gigs begin on May 27 and now, new hi-res images show the striking resemblance that the avatars bear to their individual counterparts within the four-piece. ‘Voyage’ went platinum just weeks after release at the end of last year, but Björn Ulvaeus of the group has still gone on to describe the London shows as being a high-stakes affair for the band.  “It’s an immense risk and most people I talk to don’t appreciate that, he said in an interview with The Sunday Times. “They say, ‘Oh, it’ll be fine.’ Sometimes I wake up at four in the morning and think, ‘What the hell have we done?’”

The show’s producers had previously given NME an idea of what to expect from the shows. “It’s a concert on steroids, basically,” said Ludwig Andersson. “However technically advanced these avatars are, this can never only be about technology. Like all music, you need to keep that open highway into your soul. We need to work on that emotion. It needs to always be about the audience feeling something. We’re just trying to enhance that feeling and crank it up to 11 with everything we have at our disposal.”