74 The Economist June 4th 2 022
Culture
Live musicThe new ventriloquists
T
hursday nightand the lights are low,
as the four members of abba, one of the
most successful musical acts in history,
take to the stage for the first time in nearly
40 years. Or do they? To the crowd at a pur-
pose-built arena in east London, abba’s
quartet—Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-
Frid—look authentic, their sequinned
dresses and feathered mullets swaying to
the beat provided by a live band. Yet the
singers are computer-generated illusions,
captured as they looked in 1979, and their
voices a blend of recordings from nearly
half a century ago. The virtual “Abbatars”,
who played their first concert on May 26th,
will perform seven shows a week while the
human band members stay at home and
collect the royalties.
Concertgoers got used to digital perfor-
mances during the lockdowns of 2020-21,
when in-person gigs were not possible.
Since the relaxation of covid rules, people
have returned to shows in person. But even
as live music roars back, some digital inno-
vations are here to stay. Selling tickets to
online video-streams of live gigs has be-
come standard. Online gaming platformsare experimenting with hybrid music-
gaming experiences. Musicians are realis-
ing that, pandemic or not, there is money
to be made in performing gigs without be-
ing physically in front of the audience.
abba’s extraordinary new show,
“Voyage”, goes even further. It demon-
strates the potential for a new category of
event that is at once in-person and virtual.
abba’s reanimation took six years and cost
£140m ($175m), a third of which went on
the high-tech London stadium. The band
members spent five weeks performing on a
stage in Stockholm, in front of 160 cameras
operated by Industrial Light and Magic, a
visual-effects company that has previouslybrought to life Jedi knights and Avengers.
Their rejuvenated virtual selves are
eerily real: dancing, jiving and, between
songs, joshing with the crowd (virtual Ben-
ny insisting that he is the real thing: “I just
look very good for my age”). On the open-
ing night the audience, which included the
king and queen of Sweden, suspended
their disbelief, unselfconsciously cheering
and applauding what was, strictly speak-
ing, an empty stage.
Most high-tech concerts are nothing
like as sophisticated as the abba show. But
basic digital services are changing the eco-
nomics of even ordinary gigs. In the early
days of lockdown, singers live-streamed
impromptu concerts from their bedrooms
on online video platforms such as Twitch.
They soon realised that, when competing
for screen time with the likes of Netflix,
“you need it to look as cinematic and as
spectacular as the latest blockbuster,” says
Ric Salmon of Driift, one of several firms
that sprang up in 2020 to help musicians
stream professional-looking gigs. As
shows got slicker they charged more:
whereas in April 2020 only about 1% of
live-streamed concerts were ticketed, 18
months later nearly half were, at an aver-
age price of $16, says Tatiana Cirisano of
midiaResearch, a firm of analysts.
The number of live streams fell by
about half last year, as life got back to nor-
mal. But acts have continued to make mon-
ey from online gigs—and they expect to
make more. In March bts, a Korean pop
sensation, streamed a concert for 2.4mThe profitable rise of the work-from-home rock star→Also in this section
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76 A gritty debut novel
77 Home Entertainment: Arthur Russell
77 Tales of banishment
78 Johnson: Family matters