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Recently I attended another ABBA tribute band performance, this time the group is "adbacadabra" or abbacadabra as they were announced and called on the Pala Resort and Casino's website and casino signage. Since Pala is nearby where I work, I thought I'd give their show a try and I went with a fellow ABBAMAILer.

We arrived about fifteen minutes before the show and the casino's "Grand Cabaret" lounge looked like a very nice venue to see a show. On the stage was a projection screen with some dreadful images that have some trivia appearing on screen and between every trivia bit was some questions followed by answers about ABBA. We certainly appreciated the fact that some thought went into some of the questions, such as "Are all four members of ABBA from Sweden" and correctly identifying Frida as not being Swedish. However, we were amused to see that apparently "Ring Ring" was actually up for the Swedish heats for Eurovision in 1972 and Waterloo won "Eurovision" in 1973. I could have sworn it was "Ring Ring" in 1973, and "Waterloo" in 1974, but I'm just an ABBA fan, what do I know? I'm not sure if the pre-show questions and answers were provided by the casino or the band, but it certainly appears that "Ask Ian" Cole wasn't used to consult on the ABBA trivia.

The show started with "Ring Ring" and then went right into "Waterloo" and then didn't everything after the song selection didn't deviate from the songs that appear on the "ABBA Gold" compilation until the encore. The choice of song order was certainly interesting as my fellow ABBAMAILer noted that the first half of the set seemed to favor the "Frida" led songs, which we certainly didn't mind.

But to truly critique the tribute band's performance I feel it's necessary to review them based on the "Open Letter To ABBA Tribute Bands" that I wrote in April. Please click here (http://www.abbamail.com/columnis/ryan_apr2005.htm) to review the open letter.

In the first area of concern, fake Swedish accents, "adbacadabra" were rampant with fake Swedish accents. The "Agnetha" was certainly the worst culprit as she was not only laying it on thickly when "talking" she was also laying it on thickly while "singing" not even the real Agnetha sounds that Swedish on the real ABBA songs. The "Frida" was better in this regard who only seemed to apply a light accent just when speaking.

As this band chose to play the members of ABBA as if they are characters in a play, I suppose to some degree that might justify channeling a fake Swedish accent, but at the same time, we know you aren't the real ABBA so it's not necessary to extend the pretending to be ABBA into the parts of your show between the songs. I can imagine some members of the general public might actually think they are seeing the real ABBA so I certainly appreciate that when band member introductions are made, the use of the phrase "in the role of" was used to make the distinction clear.

Moving on to my second point in the open letter, performance of other people's songs. When it was originally written it was mostly written to address the tribute act, Bjorn Again who incorporates "Message In A Bottle" by the Police right into the middle of "S.O.S." Adbacadabra employed the use of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" as kind of a clever way to ask the audience at the end of the show, what song they want to hear, when the audience responds, "Dancing Queen" "Benny" says, "You want us to do some Queen?" While technically I would normally frown upon the inclusion of "Bohemian Rhapsody", I was amused at the play on words and will give some credit for the creativity, especially since it launches into a proper version of "Dancing Queen" that is not blended in, just given a clever introduction. And the rest of the show was a very nice focus on ABBA material, so I wouldn't feel like I was being fair for deducting any points for the slight addition of Queen material, after all it was only added to the final song in the encore and not in the main part of the show.

My third point in the open letter to tribute bands was the use of "Fernando" for audience competition. Fortunately, adbacadabra excelled here. The did a very nice version of Fernando with "Agnetha" and "Frida" perched on stools out in the audience. Instead, it was "I Have A Dream" that became an audience sing-a-long, and fortunately, it wasn't turned into a competition between the left and right sides of the room, just an all around, everyone join in.

Moving on to song selection, here adbacadabra didn't earn any extra points in my book, but they certainly didn't lose any either. The bulk of the show stuck very closely to the ABBA Gold compilation. The only exceptions were "Ring Ring", and in the encore, where "Hole In Your Soul" and "When All Is Said And Done" were incorporated. Technically, "Ring Ring" is on the Aussie version of ABBA Gold, but I wouldn't expect a North American tribute band to know that. And considering the show runs a little longer than an hour and a half, there really isn't much expectation to fit more than just the more well known hits into the mix.

With costumes, here adbacadabra wins some points but also loses some. Going for the earned points, the clichéd cat shirts/miniskirts were never used. Finally a tribute band that doesn't use them. The costumes that were used, at least before a costume change were based on the 1979 tour costumes, at least for the girls anyway. The color scheme on the outfits didn't quite look right and for the guys the shirts looked more like the outfits employed by the supporting band members of the 1979 tour than the stars that Benny and Björn were dressed to be like. Granted the real Björn's 1979 costume is borderline frightening looking, perhaps something more in line with Benny's original look where the shirt is more like a jacket in the deeper colors from the color scheme.

The post costume change outfits did not look like authentic Agnetha and Frida outfits, especially not any outfits they ever any tours in. They seemed to look almost identical to the 1979 tour outfits except in a nice solid blue instead of white with a striped pattern incorporated. Also, for accuracy, the capes that Agnetha and Frida wore with the 1979 tour outfits came off immediately rather than a couple songs into the performance. They're just for show when ABBA first "appears" on stage.

Also, since none of the outfits used in the performance reflected the early era ABBA outfits, a suggestion I would like to make is that the feathered Agnetha hair was circa 1975. By 1979 Agnetha cut her hair short. Frida's hair was a bit closer to being accurate for the outfits used, with it being shorter, but also by 1979, Frida was certainly not using shoulder length hair. In fact, in ABBA fan circles, Frida's hair serves as a way to "carbon date" ABBA photos in that she changed her hairstyle so often, you could narrow down just about any ABBA photo and place it within six months of its actual date it was shot. Normally this issue wouldn't make much of a difference because most tribute bands choose costumes from several different eras of ABBA history and it would be impossible to adjust costumes and hair every time the outfit changed, after all, we're not talking about a Cher tribute concert. But with the narrow window of outfits selected here, a little more attention to detail could be warranted.

The open letter also suggests that tribute bands should stick to their characters. In this case, adbacadabra did a pretty good job up where the Frida was properly singing songs that the real Frida sings and the same with Agnetha. However, this breaks down in the encore, where "When All Is Said And Done" was no longer Frida's version "The Winner Takes It All" but now a duet song that has "Agnetha" starting the song. That was just not right. And then when they both sang it just kind of ruined a song that should have stayed with Frida on lead vocals.

Respecting the music is the next category on my open letter, and overall, I think adbacadabra did a good job here. Some suggestions for improvement here would be to have the "Björn" look a little more like he's actually playing his guitar. Both my fellow ABBAMAILer and I were not quite convinced the "Björn" character was really playing or not. And one big suggestion I would like to make is to completely ditch the full length mirror brought out on stage so Agnetha can look into it, backside to the audience while she sings the introductory and closing parts of "The Winner Takes It All." My fellow ABBAMAILer and I nearly fell out of our booth with laughter over the mirror. But certainly do keep the "Super Trouper" lighting on "Benny's" piano. Even though that's kind of cheesy like the mirror it was certainly reminiscent of the real ABBA video for the song and was appropriate.

And lastly, my open letter felt that tribute bands should look like their having fun. With the exception of "Björn" it looked like everyone on stage was having a great time which certainly carried over into the audience. Overall the show was good and I enjoyed myself at the show. But billing adbacadabra as "The Ultimate ABBA Tribute" I would say that's quite a bit of a stretch at this point, but what I saw was certainly respectable and with some work could become closer to that "Ultimate" tribute band status.

If any readers are interested in seeing adbacadabra, I would suggest visiting their web site at http://www.adbacadabra.com to see if they are playing in a North American venue near you. It's a decent show.