Polyester: The official F-ABBA-ric. Get it? Get it?
As a theater nerd through and through I kind of live for things like talk back sessions. On top of the fun of seeing a show, you get the opportunity to ask any question that pops into your head about said show (which always provides for some amusing moments.) So you can imagine my excitement when the Generation Next post-show event was a discussion with ABBA Mania creator and band member Mark Thomas!
Mark was so gracious in answering all of our questions from “What happens when a member of your group gets sick?” (they have an understudy on tour with them) to “Are there ABBA Mania groupies?” (they have an especially nice following in the U.K., but sorry ladies, he’s married!) And then there is my favorite factoid of the evening: in addition to performing the pop hits of ABBA, Mark is actually a trained jazz drummer! Very talented guy.
Before I sign off, friends in cyberspace, let me leave you with this nugget of knowledge: Generation Next events are some of the best deals in town. For a $25 ticket I saw a show, attended a post-show event, AND got a free drink (gentlemen take note, this is a brilliant date idea!). And, of course, where else can you meet a jazz drummer who also plays Bjorn of ABBA?
We came, we saw. We danced. It was a good night. Maddie’s post below covers most of the happenings; her next post will cover the post-performance discussion with ABBA Mania’s creator.
Meanwhile, in researching my previous post, I discovered a phenomenon that takes the subject of ABBA cover songs to the next level:
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: Bjorn Again, a group dedicated to covering the works of other pop stars in the sultry harmonic stylings of ABBA.
Click and be amazed:
Any show that features sparkly, silver, platform, knee-high boots, 70’s jumpsuits, and a man named Bjorn is something that I want to be a part of. Believe me, you would too! Granted I walked in the door an ABBA fan, but I promise not everyone there was a Swedish pop music aficionado… I’m pretty sure the guy a few rows in front of me was forced at gunpoint by his girlfriend to buy tickets… but that being said, even HE was on his feet by the end of the first act! So now…without further ado…
The Top 5 Greatest Moments of ABBA Mania!
5) The audience dancing in the aisles. There are very few theatrical events where I have actually been encouraged to get out of my seat and sing and dance along with the performers. Usually theatres HATE when you do that! Especially the Broadway houses (trust me…I know…)
4) The finger dance. Just what IS the finger dance, you ask? Point both your index fingers up in the air. Raise your right index finger. Lower is as you raise your left index finger. Reverse. Repeat. The audience was instructed to do this with the performers— I can’t explain it, but there is something SO cool about doing the same choreography as the performers… even if it is something as deceptively simple as the finger dance.
3) The terrible ABBA puns you make with friends at intermission (if you put enough ABBA fans in one room it’s bound to happen.) Examples: “I ABBAsolutely love this!” “This is FABBAlous!” “I Fernandon’t ever want to leave!” (Okay, that last one’s a stretch, but you get the picture.) *Challenge: What is YOUR best ABBA pun?
2) ABBA-maniacs. I thought wearing my 70s jumpsuit would be over the top, but let me tell you there are some serious ABBA fans out there. You will know them by their platform knee-high boots, blonde wigs, and sequins. They are super nice, very fun, and I’m pretty sure always smiling and dancing (at least from what I’ve seen.)
1) My favorite moment of the night: one of the singers begins a stirring rendition of the “The Winner Takes it All”. The last song had been upbeat so people were still a bit riled up and chatty when the volume was brought down for this slow song. Apparently someone towards the front was still whispering because an avid ABBA fan let out a huge, angry “SHHHHH!” which, no lie, I heard all the way in row X. ABBA fans are serious about their music!
We all have at least one disco jumpsuit in our closets...right?
Let me begin by saying there are few things in the world that I will miss Glee for on a Wednesday night… ABBA is one of them. I know what you’re thinking, “ABBA?! Even my MOM hates disco!” To you, friend, I pose this question: Have you ever sat down and seriously listened to the ABBA-Gold: Greatest Hits album? It is—no exaggeration here— the greatest thing ever. I too was a skeptic once until my college roommate (a total music snob—no offense, Katie!) came out to me as an ABBA-maniac. You can imagine my shock. Sure, I enjoyed Mamma Mia (who didn’t?!) but listening to ABBA on a day-to-day basis? I needed convincing…
Now I’m not so much a morning person as I am a person that sets 5 alarms and still hits the snooze button several times before rolling out of bed for coffee. One morning, when Katie was sick of hearing my alarm go off for the third or fourth time, she popped in her ABBA cd in an effort to rouse me from my slumber. True story, by the end of “Take a Chance on Me” I was on my feet with that disco rhythm running through me like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever! Was it magic you ask?
No. It was ABBA.
Mind you, I am not the only one that feels this way. ABBA is a lasting phenomenon. Those of my generation may remember the A*Teens (“Upside Down”) who originally started as a teen ABBA cover band and adopted the same sound as ABBA for their own music. Then, of course, there is the Broadway and movie megahit Mamma Mia with productions and tours all over the world. As an American Studies major in college we studied the impact of disco on popular culture. While many embraced disco music and the clothing, dance styles, and club culture that went with it, the well-known “Disco Sucks” backlash plays a large role in its history as well. The disco culture was viewed as, among many things, shallow and escapist. However, for all the things that can be and have been said about disco, I defy anyone to listen to a great disco group like ABBA and not at least bop their head to the beat. It is infectious!
So tomorrow night Katie and I are going to go see ABBA Mania in concert and suffice it to say we are VERY excited. Now I just have to decide between wearing the vintage disco dress and the full-out one piece jumpsuit…
This is ABBA, circa the late '70s. I wish I had the courage to wear white overalls in public...
I’m a 27 year-old man from New Jersey, and I have complicated feelings about ABBA.
That’s not to say complicated feelings are a bad thing, per se, they’re just, well, complicated. Good-complicated, like the components of a rich tomato sauce or the season finale of Mad Men.
I have vivid childhood memories of my parents and our neighbors hosting dinner parties, with ABBA Gold playing in the background (it seemed to be one of those records that every thirtysomething couple in the 1980s owned, as if it came with the stereo or was dropped off with the morning papers one Sunday morning). “Super Trouper” conjures up phantom tastes of a casserole our neighbors used to make, otherwise forgotten.
My sophomore year of high school, I fell in love with the weird, spectacular campiness of the 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert(soon to be a Broadway musical). This film (it’s great. Go rent it. Thank me later) features “Mamma Mia” prominently…and thus, the song was stuck in my head for three weeks following.
I also became a big fan of Muriel’s Wedding, which both features the music of ABBA and the amazing Toni Collette (also worth renting. Wow, three paragraphs in, and I’m already monopolizing your Netflix queue). I think this was my first real exposure to the whole ABBA experience; the weird and wonderful mix of relentless positivity, aura of disco-kitsch, and yes, more than a hint of booty-shaking groove. There’s something to be said for such unabashed, relentlessly optimistic fabulous-ity.
Other Abba-centric memories of mine include two upperclassmen in college who would begin (and sometimes end) most parties with a rousing dance-mime version of “Fernando,” and a terrifying summer theater production of Chess I once got roped into; that’s neither here nor there.
For those of us who came of age in the suburbs in the mid-to-late nineties, I think we were all caught in a weird echo-boom of nostalgia about ABBA; as our parents rediscovered the music of their youths, and the arts and entertainment contemporaries of their generation came into control of their industries, ABBA soaked its way in to a whole new generation’s ideas and ideals of pop culture. This, ultimately led to that grand-dame of all jukebox Broadway musicals, Mamma Mia, which, in turn, spawned the film of the same name. Mamma Mia will forever be remembered for reminding us that Meryl Streep can actually do anything, and Pierce Brosnan’s singing voice sounds like the dulcet tones of a braying water buffalo.
But, I digress.
The point here is that ABBA is this undeniable cultural touchstone, tied closely to rampant and unstoppable positive vibes. And all of us, being somewhat cynical children of the new millennium, have a slight resistance to that; it is, after all, a cynical world we live in.
You have to admit, there’s something cool in being able to neat those cynical impulses back with some soulful disco-pop sent our way from Sweden.
Posted by MaddieOrton 
