Gig review: Abba The Show @ Arena, Manchester (From This Is Lancashire)

Gig review: Abba The Show @ Arena, Manchester

9:55am Thursday 17th December 2009 in

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SWEDEN came to Manchester as the phenomenal Abba The Show delighted an enthusiastic audience at the MEN Arena.

Starting even before ‘Waterloo’ with their 1973 song ‘Ring Ring’ (sung in Swedish), the show was a musical history of one of the biggest bands ever.

Hit after hit was performed with accuracy and flair: ‘Knowing Me Knowing You’, ‘Fernando’, ‘Take A Chance On Me’ and ‘SOS’ (sung half in Swedish and half in English), showed that the preparation that has gone into this show was nothing short of incredible.

‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Dancing Queen’ had the crowd in the mood for dancing and there weren’t many remaining seated.

The detail was superb, the costumes were perfect and the two female singers were almost twins of Agnetha and Anna-Frid.

We also had a couple of musicians who had backed the original Abba on stage and on record with Ulf Andersson on sax and flute and drummer Roger Palm.

A nice touch was that they used a children’s choir from a school in Swinton during ‘I Have A Dream’ and the final ‘Thank You For The music’.

And of course, the song that started Abba’s meteoric rise to fame – ‘Waterloo’ was a show stopper.

The music, costumes, lighting – in fact everything was nigh on perfect.

The original Abba will probably never grace the stage again, but these were definitely the next best thing.