Waterloo's Abba is no Waterloo for Abba. Contrariwise, the tribute band is really a tribute to Abba, their music, and their time.

Abba is back, or so it seems. When Waterloo are on stage, time stands still, and the years are wiped away, it’s all so real. In Sweden thousands of fans from six to 60 have been to Abba the Show and went into raptures of revivalist ecstasy. Whoever said ‘it’s never coming back’ was dead wrong this time round.

Camilla Hedren, Katja Nord, Jakob Melkstam, and Bjorn Dahlerg constitute Waterloo, and they bring them really back to life. They spent hours analysing old material on the originals, so as to get it right, and every movement sits to perfection, the costumes are superbly, grossly seventies and eighties. The spangles, the flares, the flicked hair, the finger pointing; time has been turned back.

Once they take the stage, hysteria reigns. As with the originals of old, when they start on Mamma Mia, they are drowned out by the shrieking crowds. That original musicians from Abba are taking part makes this throw back show more eerily real than anything else.

Why Abba, 34 years after winning the Eurovision Song Contest, is still or again so popular with old and young baffles experts and critics alike. The potency of their songs seems unbroken and a whole new Abba generation is growing up right now. After Mamma Mia the musical, one of the most popular musicals of all time, and its box office smashing film version, Abba the Show is once more showing the power of these songs.

Personally I miss the B sides of Abba’s vinyl singles something terrible. There were lovely songs on these back sides of the big hits which somehow seem to have been forgotten over the Mamma Mia hype. But could somebody please remember them and bring out a CD with these songs? My gramophone is broken and I won’t get me another one. Please? Obviously, they are missing in the show as well.

Actually, those B sides are quite essential to understanding the development of Abba music over time. Some of those early haunting and sometimes eerie songs are clearly forerunners of ‘The Day Before You Came’ and merit being played if only because of that. Maybe it is even time to have an Abba complete edition brought out, for people like me who prefer the quieter Abba over the Dancing Queen. I am sure; such a complete edition wouldn’t be a Waterloo for Abba either.