ABBA Voyage - Spoilers thread

I too was puzzled at the omission of two of their biggest hits..Super Trouper is 2nd only to DQ in the UK. I love it. Remember at the time of release it had a Festive appeal. Another guest track from Voyage would be good...NDAI or JAN to keep up the momentum. Or KAEOD.

Super Trouper is an odd one.

It's clearly an accomplished piece of music but it just feels a bit slight and a bit anaemic.

And the sup-per-per trou-per-per seems a bit gimmicky/irritating.

But I do quite like the song.

Massively prefer it to Voulez Vous and Money Money at least.

Super Trouper is ABBA's second best selling single now - thanks to downloads/streaming. At the time it was 3rd behind KMKY and DQ. Weeks at #1 don't tell you anything about overall sales.

Some of ABBA's UK #1's less popular now esp Fernando, KMKY, TNOTG and ST whereas others that never made #1 more popular now eg SOS, LAYLOM and basically almost all the Voulez Vous era songs especially GGG



I find the su per ter bit irritating too.

Changing the setlist? I would ditch Hole in Your Soul for Take a Chance on Me. HIYS is not that that well known and it's a bit much to start the show with two relatively unknown songs. Take a Chance on Me deserves a place.

Dropping Waterloo would indeed be sacrilege.


Summing Up
1. Most of the songs have to be popular and well known. Judge popularity by including streaming now not just sales 40+ years ago.
2. There are 7 non-Gold tracks on. That seems a bit high. Perhaps 5 - the 2 Voyage tracks, SNC, The Visitors and either WAISAD or Eagle.

Often, of course, unfamiliarity with an artist's work leads one to focus only on their most popular stuff and so neglect tracks that might be equally deserving of attention. So I can understand that, apart from The Visitors and When All Is Said And Done, they have been so obvious with their setlist.

But if the main focus of the Voyage concert are their well-known songs, then the absence of Super Trouper is difficult to understand. Perhaps Benny and/or Björn really dislike it now (do Frida and Agnetha have much of a say?) and feel, like some fans do, that it's no great loss to the show? I admit I've let my dislike of the Su-papas in the chorus to inordinately spoil the song for me, especially the chorus itself (yet the chorus has a great bass riff, and I love that sort of thing.) And I do love the rest of the song, so I'm pleased that quite a few here in this thread have been so positive about the song.

A very good review.

Looking at that and other reviews it does seem a waste not to have ABBAtars for Eagle, Voulez Vous or Waterloo.

Having the band more on Does Your Mother Know seems like a nice gesture.

I am not 100% surprised, I Still Have Faith in You came across better (Foreverfan remarked it got more applause too). I prefer DSMD but maybe a hybrid song, part Day Before You Came part Take a Chance on Me that doesn't quite work "live".

Seems to be consensus too about not selling the Voyage album.

I haven't looked at clips on youtube, I would imagine taken with camera phones they don't do the sound or visuals justice. I have seen all the official trailers and it looks good.

I'm OK with that ratio. When the time comes for switching things up, I think On And On And On could be a good (and slightly better known) replacement for Hole In Your Soul? Maybe some of the switch-ups might also lead to a shift in the running order for some of the other songs to refresh things for repeat punters. Without knowing what the technology will allow, I imagine that costumes are not inextricably linked with songs? For instance, if say TWTIA was moved to an earlier slot, would there be a crazy jump between Tron and Grecian gold costumes and back again?

The repeated comments about Eagle and Voulez-Vous makes me wonder whether Benny, Bjorn and the rest of the production team might be taking notes about putting in "performances" for either one at some point? It would be a bit tedious if, say, VV was swapped out for TACOM and the same video sequence was used.

What I really like about the show, is how Agnetha & Frida are heavily choreographed, but make it look spontaneous, the greatest example of this is the Eurovision performance, I always thought I was seeing the same clip whenever I saw it aired, it’s only in last few years that I noticed that the performance is choreographed into an inch of its life. Every little hand gesture and move is planned. In Dancing Queen in 2022 it is very similar where the ladies move with alleged spontaneity, but then marry up for some ‘mirror dancing’ as it was called in the 70s (think it was Agnetha who called it that.)
I kinda thought that ABBA lost some of that craft in their concerts, and in huge venues it could look amateurish, hence The Movie and In Concert work so well on TV, due to the close ups. When you watch 79 shows on amateur cameras they were a bit all over the place, and moments in Chiquitita where you could spot the Frida vs Agnetha fans as to who the clapped along with.
This production has cemented their live showmanship.

Just saw the trailer It looks great, you really think ABBA are really there on the stage.

It is not possible to take away one and retain the other. The animated story is spread across both songs. So either both have to stay in or both have to be removed. Otherwise it wouldn't nake sense. I, for one, am for removing them.

That's for posting that 360° video, @kmky. Wow... the sequence for Knowing Me, Knowing You is gorgeous.

I guess ticket sales for the show have been bought (so far) by the more serious fans who probably have Voyage and More Gold.

If the show massively increases ticket sales and bring in the casual ABBA Gold/Mamma Mia fans than I guess some won't know a handful of the songs. But I guess that's their problem.


From what I have seen of the setlist, it is pretty good. I would just swap Hole in Your Soul for Take a Chance on Me and have a different closing song, probably Dancing Queen or Thank You for the Music.

I'm not sure of the idea of Eagle and VV being animated and not Abbatars.

I’m not surprised Benny wanted Winner as the final song as he says it is their best ever song. And I also imagine Benny and Bjorn think ST and TACOM are not ‘cool’ enough to be in the show; they have never said those two songs are great. And I bet they would ignore Waterloo if they could! (Might explain why that one is just a montage of clips)

Also the pre show announcement by benny. 😂

I don't have any particular beef with HIYS. I only suggested OAOAO for consideration at some point if they decide to change the setlist a bit. It struck me as being in the same rocky/bouncy ballpark as HIYS, that's all. Better than, say, Rock Me or the other rock-adjacent tracks in the ABBA catalogue. I absolutely LOVE If It Wasn't For The Nights and would happily replace a good number of the songs on the setlist with it. So all of this is just my opinion. 

I was surprised too that TWTIA was the closer but, having seen some clips, I can see how they use the backing vocals and the outro as a melodic backdrop for when the ABBAtars take their bows. Love or loathe the song, it's an iconic hit that is a comfortable fit for a show climax (there are others, of course, but it is what it is). I think I'm more surprised that Waterloo, Mamma Mia and Dancing Queen aren't all bunched together for a more upbeat end to the show. But like you say, they might be keen to avoid clichés.