ABBA ruling the pop-music airwaves
For just a few short years from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, ABBA ruled the pop-music airwaves as one of the era’s best-selling groups, churning out a long line of hits such as “Dancing Queen,” “Fernando,” “Mamma Mia,” “Money Money Money,” “Chiquitita” and many more. And although the group broke up in 1982, interest in its music has continued thanks largely to compilations of its hits and, of course, the stage musical and film “Mamma Mia!”
ABBA fans, whether they remember the music first-hand or were introduced to it thanks to “Mamma Mia!,” can get a taste of what a live performance by the Swedish pop sensations would have been all about when ABBA-Mania comes to the Tecumseh Center for the Arts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Tickets are $24 for adults and $21 for youth and senior citizens and are available by calling the TCA at 423-6617; at the box office, located at 400 N. Maumee St., Tecumseh; or online at www.thetca.org.
ABBA-Mania got its start in 2000 thanks to producer Garry Lichach, who’d already formed several tribute bands and was approached to do the same for ABBA after the musical “Mamma Mia!” came out. He got the group off the ground with two women who were part of his Spice Girls tribute band and looked much like ABBA’s Agnetha and Anni-Frid (also known as Frida). When the pair first tried out an ABBA tune, “the first verse of the first song, I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ ” Lichach said. “They sounded exactly like ABBA.”
The group, which now features Matthew Whale as Benny, Monica Tietz as Anni-Frid, Andrea Pressburger as Agnetha, and Nick Pattison as Bjorn, plus backup musicians, has worked hard to re-create the ABBA experience, from the vocals to the costumes to the whole onstage experience. They studied all of ABBA’s videos and had a choreographer work with them early on, although Lichach says his group is actually better at dance than ABBA was.
Tags: Mamma Mia
