Thank you for the music: the wholesome fivesome as Abba plus one on stage at the Ashcroft Theatre in Croydon
KEN TOWL has a night out in Croydon, but not for the first time, he’s heard it all before
Mamma Mia! Here I go again!
My, my, how can I resist the Fairfield Halls when they put on yet another tribute act?
This time, it is Thank You For the Music, a five-piece tribute to the Swedish 70s supergroup Abba. Five piece? I hear you ask, surely Abba were a foursome, namely Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad?
Thank You For The Music featured members who approximated to the fabulous four, but also a drummer, variously introduced as “Fernando” and then several Scandi-sounding names, who helped fill out the sound. And the sound needed filling out. It was a mixture of live singing/instrumentation (“Björn”’s guitar; “Benny”’s keyboards) and playback, sometimes more of one, sometimes more of the other.
It was good enough though, and “Agnetha” played ‘the blonde one’ well enough, and “Anni-Frid” was convincing as ‘the brunette’.
Winner takes it all: Shawn poses for iC before being awarded first prize in the fancy dress contest
This Abba were Fabba (and I include “Fernando” here) when they stuck to the songs. In a theatre full of devoted Abba-fans of all ages, it should have been a no-brainer. To be fair, they stuck closely to the most popular of Abba’s back catalogue, including all nine of their No1s.
They let the momentum drop a few times, however, when they tried to fill out the spaces between the costume changes with what sounded like rehearsed but not well-rehearsed “banter”, in which we learned, for example, that Anni-Frid and Benny’s marriage was on the rocks because he was “so far in the closet he was in Narnia!”
There was also an extended riff on how their marriage might have been saved if only he, Benny, had been able to kick higher. No, said Benny, it would have been saved if only she, Anni-Frid, had been able to kick higher. It felt like a joke without a punchline. An 80%-full Ashcroft Theatre was palpably willing them on to get to the next song.
It was a little disappointing to see that few in the audience had made the effort to dress up in their glittering glam-rock finest. Indeed, the momentum-slowing competition in which members of the audience who had bothered to dress up were invited to stand and show themselves off for the band’s approval attracted only five entries.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
The winner, deservedly, was Shawn (who had kindly posed for a photograph for Inside Croydon prior to the show). He was informed that he could collect his prize in the interval. All he had to do was go to the bar, where he would be given a glass… of water! Laugh? We almost did.
But hey, (or do I mean hej?), this was the Fairfield Halls, where you get what you pay for, and what you pay for is an end-of-the-pier show, another tribute act from a roster of tribute acts that include the Bee Gees, ELO and Michael Jackson – and all those are just in October.
There are some real bands out there, too, still doing the rounds now that the revenue from record sales has dried up. In November, we have The Stylistics (two of whom are from the original 1968 line-up) and Steeleye Span (one of whom is from the original 1969 line-up, though that one is, at least, the lead singer, Maddy Prior). Francis Rossi, a long-time resident of Purley’s exclusive Webb Estate, even puts in an appearance on stage in his home town in September.
What we don’t have is any new, up-and-coming, bands or artists, the sort of performers who would make the Fairfield Halls a venue that was “iconic”, rather than ironic.
So, thank you for the music, Fairfield, but what’s the name of the game? Call up some new agents, ring ring, and send out an SOS. Take a chance on a more eclectic line-up. It might not hasten your Waterloo.
In fact, in the words of Abba’s final No1, “The Winner Takes It All”.
A-ha!
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