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Pop Band ABBA is Back! With a Museum in Stockholm
By Nishi Jain On 30 Apr, 2013 At 01:03 PM | Categorized As Buzz in Town, Celeb Spotting, International | With 0 Comments

And we are back! (from left) Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Benny Andersson.

You couldn’t get enough of the peppy tunes in Mamma Mia? You liked a little jig now and then, swaying to ‘Dancing Queen’ in your billowy bell bottoms. You miss the darlings of 70s’ pop music scene—the ABBA. They are back and with a bang! No, they are not releasing another album. It’s something even better.

Come May 7 and Stockholm will see frenzy among music fans. It is the day when the Abba museum opens in the Swedish Music Hall of Fame in Stockholm. And it is no ordinary museum—it is an interactive and innovative tour into the lives of the Abba members. Hell, they have even recreated some iconic scenes from the band’s career trajectory, and visitors can be part of those moments by posing with the virtual band members. Pick your favourite!

The museum exhibits include the dramatic stage costumes (we always wanted to try their star-shaped onesies), Abba’s star-shaped guitars, even their mixing desks—provided by the band members themselves. Yes, Abba has been involved with the setting up of the museum. Band member Björn Ulvaeus sees it as “a museum of a pop phenomenon, interesting to anyone who is interested in music.”

Okay now for the star features. The museum guys have really racked their brains out for this one. Standing in the museum, you can actually talk to one of the band members! Yes, live, hale and hearty! This is how it will happen: from out of the blue, a phone will ring. If you are near to it, pick up as soon as you can, for it will be a band member on the line! And if you hear piano music playing an Abba tune, listen carefully: it will be Benny Andersson playing live! I seriously think there might be some fainting instances in the museum.

I have a dream

Next in the list of surprises are the mock sets representing Abba’s life story. So they have a songwriting cottage, their backstage dressing room, and oh my god, the kitchen of Bjorn and Agnetha. For those of you who don’t know, they were married for many years, and so were Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson.

Okay, there is also a 180-degree cinema, an audio guide that tells the story of each of the band members, in their own words. Fans can even remix an Abba song, and pose with Abba costumes superimposed on them. And what’s more, you can record the entire experience at the museum—your antics at the constructed sets, your pictures with the band members’ statues, your remixed tracks, and access it later.

At the Abba museum, this could be you!

This is one musical you cannot, for the love of god, miss. For music maniacs who plan to visit the country to tour the Abba Museum, there is a 50-room boutique hotel named Melody  in the Swedish Music Hall of Fame building itself.

Nishi Jain

About - Nishi Jain spent some precious years of her life studying English literature, editing novels, and writing newspaper articles. Then one day, as she was sitting under a tree with no branches, a rotten pancake fell on her head from the window above and she had her Newtonian moment. From then on, all she does is eat pancakes, write, and profess fake love to pastry chefs.

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