Swedish pop group Abba are back with a world tour but it’s a tour with a difference.
Almost 40 years since their last album, they will appear digitally via avatars with a live 10-piece band at the ABBA Arena in London where they will perform a new album, Voyage.
To mark the launch, eight cities — Sydney, Tokyo, London, New York, Stockholm, Rio, Reykjavik, Berlin and Cape Town — feature in a livestream on ABBA's official YouTube Channel.
Abba’s digital avatars were created using motion capture technology while London’s Royal Ballet choreographed the band’s performance, and an effects company designed and animated the de-aged avatars from the footage.
In Sydney, where Abba performed in 1977 on their first and only Australian tour, striking avatars of Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus have illuminated the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, accompanied by a dazzling light display across the Bridge arch.
Abba split in 1982 and were adamant they would not perform as a group again.
“Why do the project now? Björn offered. “We wanted to do it before we were dead.”
Tickets for the London show go on general sale from 7 September.