This is this year's big children's show

+++ (out of 5 +) ABBA Teens Tour premiere: Fiskartorget, Västerås
Audience: 400-500
Length: 45 minutes
Best: The charm. And the songs of course.
Worst: Compared to the originals, some arrangements sound poor.

Question: Who came up with this idea?
VÄSTERÅS. Of course. A very smart calculated concept. But this is most of all about lots of charm, undisguised joy and classic pop. ABBA Teens will become stars, even if only for one summer.

The idea is as clear as it can get. There is ABBA-fever and boy and girl groups are more popular than ever. Find two girls and two boys about 15 - 16 years old who can sing and dance and who are cute, give them silverpants and a repertoire of ABBA-classics and you have idols for the children and great nostalgic entertainment for their parents.

Of course it works. Of course it's commercial. Of course ABBA Teens-caps, ABBA Teens-t-shirts (pink for girls and blue for boys) and an ABBA Teens-yoyo are being sold. If they're really lucky, mom might get a customercard from KF (KF owns a chain of grocerystores in Sweden. Claes' note), who sponsors the tour.

But as soon as the show begins, the dark cynical glasses fall off. Because ABBA Teens are good. Backed up by a real band and two backup girls, Marie Serneholt, Sara Lumholdt, Dhani Lennevald and Amit Paul jump in on stage, grab the microphones and start with "Take a chance on me" with so much charm and young joy that the temperature at the rain-laden square rises many degrees. Then we get "SOS", "One of Us", "Dancing Queen" and seven more songs and, as an extra song, the single "Mama Mia". Spectacular, timeless popmusic. And if possible, performed more simple than in the old days. The teenage voices are sometimes quite shrill and the dance steps maybe not the most difficult ones, but it works.

And most of all, the girls impress. They have fun and enjoy themselves while the boys aren't as relaxed and they seem to be more nervous. But the response is great and that gives you confidence quickly. The whole quartet will grow, learn as they go along.

Naturally a group like ABBA Teens has a limited length of life and even if there's talk about promotion abroad, they'll probably only be able to dance one summer in Sweden. But they'll never forget it. Because this is probably this year's big children's show.

Written by Håkan Steen