Arrival turned us all into Dancing Queens

ABBA tribute band Arrival from Sweden did just that as they kicked off the Bermuda Festival of Performing Arts with a dazzling retro-style show at the Fairmont Southampton Resort’s Mid-Ocean Amphitheatre.

Except tribute band doesn’t really do them justice as they look like ABBA, they knew all the dances moves and they sang all the old hits note-for-note. If you had closed your eyes you could have sworn you were hearing the original songs being sung by the original group.

This was a sellout show featuring one catchy, hummable hit after another and the venue was packed with die-hard ABBA fans. The crowd was predominantly mature females with a handful of husbands and children taken along to keep the gaggle of girls company.

Things were a little slow to get going as Arrival came on stage 15 minutes late and opened up with the lesser known track Tiger. There were a few nods of the head, a little clapping and some swaying, but people remained firmly in their seats.

It wasn’t until a few songs in that the crowd got into the swing of things to favourites like Voulez-Vous, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man after Midnight) and Super Trouper. This is when people started to get on their feet. But it was the Eurovision hit Waterloo, that got everyone displaying their dance moves.

As the band said themselves: “We came all the way from Sweden. Are you going to dance?” The room was transformed into a 1970s disco as people danced away in front of the stage, in the aisles and around the edges of the room.

Arrival reeled off all the hits people wanted to hear — I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do; SOS; Mamma Mia; Money, Money, Money; Knowing Me, Knowing You; Take a Chance On Me; Summer Night City, The Winner Takes It All, Thank You For The Music, Dancing Queen and Chiquitita.

They made their way through about 20 hits, including a couple of nicely put-together melodies. They explained: “we discovered that if you squeeze in some of the songs and make them shorter, you will get more.”

Infectious tunes

There was no interval, the group simply gave us an hour-and-a-half of non-stop ABBA hits. Everyone in the crowd knew every word to the infectious tunes — and they weren’t afraid to show it.

The Anna-Frid, Bjorn, Benny and Agnetha look-alikes were great entertainers who shone on stage. They were accompanied by an impressive four-piece band, including original bass player Mike Watson who took a few minutes to explain “all the bass grooves that you are dancing to.”

The saxophonist (Per Lang) is also worthy of a mention for his solos and the moves of the three female backing singers didn’t go unnoticed.

The skin-tight lycra costumes were spot on, topped off with capes and glittery platform boots “which were not made for walking.” The white and gold clingy creations earned plenty of wolf-whistles from the crowd as they left little to the imagination. In fact one of the biggest cheers of the night came as Vicky Zetterberg aka Anna-Frid bent over in her bottom revealing hotpants.

Halfway through the set the girls took it in turns to go back stage and get changed, but one costume change is all we got. Seeing as Arrival pride themselves on being the only ABBA tribute band with the exclusive rights to copy the original costumes, it would have been nice to have seen more of what they had in their wardrobe.

The group sang unbelievably well with some great harmonies despite the sound not being the best at the venue. And the all-seater venue just didn’t work — somewhere without rows of chairs would have automatically made it into the dance party it was intended to be.

All in all, it was a real night of nostalgia where the appreciative crowd proved they could dance, they could jive, they could have the time of their lives.