I dimly remember an advertisement for blank cassette tapes that asked “Is It Real? Or Is It Memorex?”  It suggested that it was impossible to tell the difference between an original performance and a version recorded on that particular brand of tape.

I suppose the modern equivalent of copycat versions of the originals are tribute acts performing the music of Queen, ELO, Eagles and other popular bands.

Like ‘em or loathe ‘em, without tribute acts, the doors of many venues around the UK would remain closed several nights a week.

One of the most popular ABBA tribute acts is Bjorn Again and I’ve often wondered if the two male singers swap roles some nights, just for a change.
“You can be Benny tonight. I wasn’t Bjorn yesterday!”

Now the ultimate ABBA ‘tribute’ show has opened at the ABBA ARENA in London’s Olympic Park, starring the real ABBA…well, a version of them.

Let me explain…

Thanks to amazing technology that’s taken five years to develop, Benny, Bjorn, Anna-Frid and Agnetha have ‘reformed’ and appear on stage as three-dimensional, digital ‘Avatars ‘ or ‘Abba-tars’, backed by ‘live’, non-Avatar musicians.

Earlier versions of this technology were used to bring Roy Orbison and Whitney Houston ‘back to life’ on stage – but apparently the ‘ABBA-TARS’ leave them light years behind.

To create their Avatars, ABBA spent five weeks being filmed performing 20 of their hits, wearing helmets equipped with cameras and microphones and ‘motion capture’ suits covered in sensors.

The footage was then handed to 1000 digital artists to bring the 1970s version of ABBA back to life, which didn’t come cheap.

Getting the show from the idea stage to the London stage cost £15million. The whole enterprise, financially and technologically, seems mind-boggling.

As it’s on seven days a week until December, with the potential to keep going until 2026, it’s unlikely they won’t make loads of ‘Money, Money, Money’.

I don’t fully understand the technology (and don’t pretend you do) but perhaps sometime in the future I could send out a Phil Evans Avatar to perform my comedy gigs while the real one stayed home and wrote articles.

The posters might say….  Is It Phil? Or Is It Phil’s AMMAN-TAR?