"Mamma mia!" The PNC Bank Arts Center amphitheater in Holmdel, NJ, is packed this Tuesday, September 25, 2024 afternoon with music lovers ready to enjoy a free Garden State Arts Foundation concert starring Arrival from Sweden, the premier Swedish ABBA tribute band.
Backstage, Arrival from Sweden singer/guitarist Daniel Palmqvist, who plays the role of “Björn” in today’s show, explains, “I’ve been with Arrival from Sweden for about seven or eight years now. I grew up in Sweden listening to my parents’ ABBA records as well as listening to The Beatles, but when I first started taking music seriously, I got into playing classical guitar and, also, playing hard rock. Nowadays, I play a lot of classical guitar and I play with a lot of rock bands, but I also write for different rock and roll artists and, as a songwriter, it’s evident that ABBA has been a significant influence for a lot of Swedish musicians like me.”
Acknowledging, “I love being a part of Arrival from Sweden — it’s a great bunch of people who play really good music, and I couldn’t have done it for so many years if I didn’t enjoy it so much,” Palmqvist confesses, “Although it can be a bit exhausting at times, it’s fun touring the world, and I always enjoy seeing that, with ABBA, the music appeals to audiences of all different ages. When I look out into the audience I see everyone from little kids to young adults to senior citizens, so ABBA is just one of those classic pop bands where everybody knows their songs and the music always seems to be attracting new fans.”
Outside in the PNC Bank Arts Center amphitheater, Vice President of the GSAF Board of Trustees Ron Gravino welcomes the large audience to this afternoon’s event. He thanks the sponsors of the show — notably Live Nation Entertainment and PNC Bank — along with GSAF executive director Cookie Santiago and Bob O’Brien and the many volunteers for their help with GSAF events.
Gravino introduces Arrival from Sweden and the pre-recorded sound of a helicopter ushers in Daniel Palmqvist as “Björn” along with musicians on bass, drums, and saxophone/keys. After Lake Larsson as “Benny” and two female back-up vocalists take the stage, the ensemble plays the dynamic ABBA overture, “Gammal Fäbodpsalm.”
The crowd claps along to the beat of the drums as lead singers Veronika Eriksson as “Frida” and Maja Samuelson as “Agnetha” make their entrance and begin to dance and sing the Eastern-influenced ABBA disco number, “Voulez-Vous,” in harmony.
The crowd hoots and hollers, and Larsson exclaims, “Today we will celebrate the music of ABBA!” as he invites the audience to sing and dance along. Samuelsson says, “Raise your hands up in the air!” and the crowd complies as she and ensemble launch into the upbeat ABBA electronic dance tune, “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme (A Man After Midnight),” which features Samuelsson as “Agnetha” on lead vocals.
The group segues into “Super Trouper” which spotlights Veronika Ericsson as “Frida” singing lead.
Samuelsson informs the audience that ABBA wrote over 100 songs, revealing, “We’ve chosen some of our favorites and put them into medleys, so here is a very special medley we would like to do for you.” Samuelsson’s strong vocal leads “Kisses of Fire” where heads bop in the audience to the rapid disco beat. The medley’s groove continues with the syncopated “Angeleyes” and the rhythmic “Lay All Your Love On Me.”
Eriksson asks the audience, “Do you know what ABBA stands for?” and explains that it is an acronym based on the names of the four original members, “Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid, also known as Frida.”
The crowd instantly recognizes the intro to the 1977 #1 soft rock hit, “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” which has music lovers singing along on the catchy “Knowing me, knowing you, aha/There is nothing we can do” chorus before the group deftly segues into the minor-key ABBA pop confection, “S.O.S.”
The band slows down and Lalle Larsson plays up and down the keyboard with style eliciting cheers from the crowd before Eriksson handles the lead on “Money, Money, Money” and the crowd happily joins in singing the staccato “Money, money, money/Must be funny/In the rich man’s world” refrain.
After Eriksson points out that the group’s next song was originally created for Frida’s 1975 Swedish solo album and only later recorded by ABBA, she sings the folk-rocking “Fernando” in Swedish before performing it in English. The Arrival from Sweden instrumenalists follow up with “Intermezzo #1,” a dynamic fusion piece which features Palmqvist on guitar and Larsson on keyboards playing in sync to enthusiastic applause.
Larsson announces, “We’re going to take a trip back to 1977 to perform The Girl with the Golden Hair, a mini-musical created and performed by ABBA.” The theater piece — which is about a small town girl who moves to the big city to become a star but realizes that success has its drawbacks — opens with Samuelsson in costume singing the show tune, “Thank You for the Music.” Wearing an identical costume, Eriksson takes over the character to sing the touching ballad, “I Wonder.” To conclude the piece, band members put on white masks and Samuelsson and Eriksson move like puppets as they robotically dance and sing the rhythmic “I’m a Marionette” to avid cheers and applause.
Following a short intermission, Samuelsson, Eriksson, Larsson, and Palmqvist are featured on the rocking “Does Your Mother Know” which features a wailing Daniel Palmqvist electric guitar solo before he trades licks with the band’s tenor saxophonist.
The crowd cheers, and Larsson welcomes the audience back for Act II which continues with “The Name of the Game” where Samuelsson and Eriksson sing, “What’s the name of the game?/Does it mean anything to you?” on this 1977 ABBA rock ballad.
Segueing into the slow rocking “Eagle,” Samuelsson and Eriksson dance and sing before leaving Palmqvist to play an extended guitar solo and Larsson to present a master class in keyboard performance with a solo which features lightning fast runs and syncopated twirls and turns up and down the keyboard.
Larsson announces, “This next song is a melancholy piece about winners and losers.” Background vocals call out as Larsson plays the keyboard intro to the 1980 ABBA folk-rocker, “The Winner Takes It All.” Samuelsson sings solo center stage, her clear sweet soprano filling the amphitheater as she performs with emotion and style, “The winner takes it all/The loser’s standing small/Beside the victory/That’s her destiny.”’
The crowd cheers and applauds, and Samuelsson instructs the audience, “On this next song, when you hear this descending run, lift your arms up.” Launching into the two-step, “Chiquitita,” Samuelsson and Eriksson sing to one another arm in arm and music fans do their part by lifting their arms up at the appropriate time and clapping their hands overhead to the music.
A highlight of Arrival from Sweden’s set this afternoon is their jubilant rendition of ABBA’s 1974 Europop hit, “Waterloo,” where concertgoers clap and sing along to the song’s infectious “Waterloo/Couldn’t escape if I wanted to” chorus.
Music lovers stand and cheer before dancing at their seats and joyfully singing, “Mamma Mia, here I go again” on ABBA’s 1975 pop rock hit, “Mamma Mia.”
The crowd hoots and hollers as the musicians take a bow, exit the stage, and return for an encore of the disco-infused “On and On and On,” followed by a sparkling rendition of the 1978 pop hit, “Take a Chance on Me.”
As the audience continues to clap and cheer, Larsson exclaims, “Thank you for making this gig special! Do you want to hear one more?” The crowd responds in the affirmative as Arrival from Sweden concludes their performance with their version of ABBA’s worldwide #1 hit from 1976, “Dancing Queen.”
Music lovers happily sing along on the tune’s popular “You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life” refrain before the band members wave, take a final bow, and exit the stage to the sound of the roaring crowd.
To learn more about Arrival from Sweden, please go to themusicofabba.com. For information on future GSAF concerts at the PNC Bank Arts Center please click on gsafoundation.org.
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