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I’ve recently had the opportunity to see “ABBA Gold,” one of several ABBA tribute acts that I’ve had the chance to see over the years. While I certainly consider ABBA Gold to be one of the better ones I’ve seen, I’ve also seen some bad ones and just wanted to highlight some of the good and bad things I’ve seen at all these various tribute performances that I’ve seen in hopes that your shows can be improved.

1. Fake Swedish accents.

We know ABBA is from Sweden and their speaking English is slightly accented, but most tribute act performances take their fake Swedish to the extent of the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show. This is completely unnecessary. Most of your audiences will only have casual knowledge of ABBA being from Sweden so it’s not necessary to use a fake Swedish accent when speaking to the audience. All it does is irritate the most diehard ABBA fans and it adds a “cheese factor” into your tribute performance that makes it feel more of a parody than a tribute.

The best tribute band utilizing a Swedish accent that I have seen is “ABBA: The Music” but that’s because they are really from Sweden, their accent is real, not fake. If you must employ a Swedish accent to channel ABBA for your performance, at least buy a couple of the CDs from the ABBAMAIL web shop that have interviews with the members of ABBA so you at least know what the real members of ABBA sounded like when they talked.

2. Performing other people’s songs in your performance.

Björn Again is the tribute act that is the worst culprit in this category. Björn Again’s cliche performance trick is that when the girls go off stage for a costume change, Björn and Benny are left on stage to amuse the audience while the ladies are gone. So to show the fake Björn and Benny performers are real men they “rock out” in a current popular song from a heavier rock genre or completely different genre altogether. Notable inclusions have been songs from Nirvana and Oasis. And Björn Again has also been incorporating the Police’s “Message In A Bottle” into their performances of “S.O.S.” While this may appear clever, IT IS NOT! The simple fact of the matter is the real Björn and Benny wrote their own songs and if they weren’t going to accept a song written for ABBA by the Bee Gees, they’re sure as hell, not going to perform other people’s songs in concert. And in case you were wondering, your audience came to see you perform ABBA songs.

As a suggestion, one tribute act, ABBA: The Music, did a wonderful creative variation on “S.O.S.” by singing the first half of the song in Swedish and then finishing it in English. After all, Agnetha did perform the song in Swedish as well. Perhaps tribute bands in North America could employ a hybrid Spanish/English version of “Fernando” as a creative way to introduce some variation.

3. Turning “Fernando” into an audience competition.

While audience participation is a noble goal, and getting people to sing along is a good way to get some responsiveness from your audience, it doesn’t need to become a competition between sides of the room lead by the Agnetha and Frida performers. All this does is perpetuate a myth that there was always competition between Agnetha and Frida along the lines of who was a better performer. And the biggest crime this audience competition does is stall for time, dragging out “Fernando” into twice as long as it should be. If anything, ABBA’s back catalogue of material is loaded with enough great songs, that you don’t need to do “audience filler” by dragging out the length of songs when you could just as easily impress your audience with the addition of another song. But if you want to get the audience to sing along, get everyone to sing together. We don’t care if the left side of the room is better or worse than the right side. We know, we as an audience suck as singers, that’s why we’re paying to see you sing.

4. Song selection.

While we know that your show will have to consist of a lot of the songs that found their way onto the “ABBA Gold” CD that has become so popular all over the world, it is OK to add addition songs from the albums that your audience may or may not be familiar with. The tribute act, ABBA Gold did a wonderful job incorporating some lesser known songs like “Angeleyes” and “When All Is Said And Done” which to me as an ABBA fan was a wonderful treat as I have never seen these songs performed before by any tribute band. “BABBA”, an Australian tribute act, incorporated songs like “Rock Me” in their show, and admittedly, “Rock Me” appears on the Australian version of “ABBA Gold,” it’s still a song that is generally overlooked when you think of ABBA and most tribute bands don’t perform it. So come on, you tribute bands, expand your ABBA collection beyond the greatest hits albums and buy those albums, there are a lot of album gems that you can incorporate into your shows to keep them fresh. Besides, the last round of remastered albums included several bonus tracks including some great b-sides that were never on the albums to begin with. And if you really want to get creative, invest in some bootleg concert recordings of ABBA to get songs like “I Am An A” and “I’m Still Alive” and others that ABBA did live, but never recorded studio versions. Again, even though there are a lot of songs that are absolute must play songs in an ABBA tribute concert, throw in some variety to keep it fresh for you as performers and fresh for your audience, especially the real ABBA fans who will appreciate your attention to detail. Just remember though, while Björn and Benny are the behind the scenes magic of ABBA, they are not the front of stage magic, don’t pick Björn songs, except “Does Your Mother Know”

5. The costumes.

Some tribute bands go to great lengths to replicate ABBA costumes stitch for stitch, and others just make a half-assed effort. I can certainly appreciate the bands who go to the trouble of recreating the costumes, but one bone of contention that a lot of ABBA fans like to make is that every tribute band seems to include the “cat” costumes. These particular outfits have been so overdone, it’s almost cliche. But at the same time, my non-fan friend who accompanied me to see ABBA Gold really liked the cat costumes and couldn’t actually remember seeing any photos of ABBA in those outfits. And my friend like this particular set of outfits the best of the three costume changes made by ABBA Gold. So this one is a kind of a catch-22 where you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t use them. The point I want to extend to cover bands beyond attention to detail is that is ABBA wore more than just the cat costumes in their years together. Pick up some books like “From ABBA To Mamma Mia!” by Anders Hanser and Carl Magnus Palm to get a look at the various looks ABBA had over the years and have a little bit more variety than just the cat costumes and the 1977 tour outfits. ABBA GOLD incorporated the outfits from the “Mamma Mia” video (as also replicated in the movie Muriel’s Wedding) and that was another nice variation from other tribute bands. They also incorporated the hats used in the ABBA video of “Money, Money, Money” in their performance of “Money, Money, Money” at their concert. This was a wonderful touch.

6. Stick to your “character”.

Most tribute bands describe their performances as more of acting and singing in the role of one of the members of ABBA. And in doing so, then you should stick to performing your character as your respective character. That means Agnetha should not be singing Frida songs and Frida should not be singing Agnetha songs. Just because the real Frida can say in “The Winner Takes It All” documentary that she sometimes was jealous of the song choices that Agnetha got to sing, doesn’t mean she goes out and sings the song, and as such, the fake Frida’s should not go out there and sing those Agnetha songs, not should the fake Agnetha’s do likewise. Also, Björn was kind of an unofficial leader of the group as he tended to be the one to introduce songs and talk to the audiences in between songs, and even so, he’s become the unofficial spokesperson for the real group today as he’s the one most interviewed in regards to the musical, “Mamma Mia!” so your Björn can be a little bit more involved, but again, don’t let him sing too often, the real Björn sang lead vocals too often according to many ABBA fans. And also in terms of sticking with your characters, that means things like Björn Again’s suggesting of wife swapping during “Ring Ring” when the “phone call” from Björn to Benny across the stage suggest that Benny’s platform boots were found under Agnetha’s bed should be dropped.

7. Respect the music.

The magic that once was ABBA has become timeless and your best path to success as a tribute band is to respect the magic that went into the original music. Everything from Björn & Benny’s music and lyrics including the songs co-written with Stig Anderson, to the vocal excellence employed by Agnetha and Frida. To get a better understanding of the work gone into the ABBA songs, I highly recommend reading the work of fellow ABBAMAIL columnist, Chris Patrick, who as a musician, is able to go further in depth with his analysis of ABBA music, which can help you understand and appreciate the music that you are recreating for an audience. There is a reason why ABBA music has endured for as long as it has, and giving that music it’s respect when presenting it to an audience with not only give your audience a show worth seeing, it’s a show worth performing.

8. Have fun.

This is the most important aspect we as ABBA fans want to see with you as a tribute act. We like the music and want to have fun. It’s more fun to enjoy the music when the performers on stage are having a great time. Of the tribute acts I’ve seen I would have to say that ABBA: The Music and ABBA Gold were best able to express a sense of fun from the stage that was completely infectious. Remember, the real ABBA is never going to reform, so you are filling a void in the world by bringing an ABBA concert to the masses that want to see ABBA perform. But there’s a lot more tribute bands out there than there used to be, so make sure your tribute band is the one that gets remembered for putting on a great show. Have fun, and your audience will have fun with you. Take Care,

Ryan Cameron