Thank You For The Music

Sarah Cherry,Mark Pemberton,Darren Lapping and Natalie Brigham have been performing as ABBA Arrival since the end of 1995. “Initially,all of us were performing as a band,singing and playing different types of music. One night,we were spotted while performing a few ABBA songs and we were told that we looked and sounded quite like the real group,” says Cherry who performs as Agnetha Fältskog and also designs costumes for the performances. The four then decided to come up with an ‘ABBA Tribute Show’ and they have never looked back. While Cherry and Brigham (who performs as Anni-Frid Lyngstad) sing,Lapping (as Bjorn Ulvaeus) plays guitar and Pemberton (as Benny Andersson) is on the keyboards.

Their love for ABBA however,goes back a long way. “During our younger years we all saw Abba win the Eurovision Song Contest in the UK and we loved Waterloo,which was the winning song. The competition was very big in Britain at the time,and greatly influenced the music industry here,” says Pemeberton who is the musical director of ABBA Arrival and the man responsible for ‘re-creating’ the ABBA sound. Luckily,all the members bear a physical resemblance to the main group and luckily for them,have not had ego clashes that had helped disband the original four. “We have been performing together for 15 years,which is longer than the real ABBA were together and during that time all of the original members have stayed together,” says Lapping.

The six-city tour,presented by Seagram’s 100 Pipers,will start in Delhi and Noida on April 16 and then travel to Chandigarh,Dehradun,Lucknow,Hyderabad and Bangalore. “This is such an exciting trip for us,every show we are lucky enough to perform whilst in India will be a highlight,” says Brigham. “We’re looking forward to performing our favourite ABBA songs,The Name of the Game,Dancing Queen and Waterloo,” she adds. Mamma Mia! So are we.