Are virtual Bowie concerts on the horizon?

I recently reads that there’s an effort afoot to launch virtual Bowie concerts, featuring holographic avatars, similar to the successful Voyage concerts featuring the band ABBA, as its members appeared in the 70s. Here’s how an Esquire article described the ABBA event:

“Instead of flesh and blood ABBA, the show is performed by life-sized, animated CGI avatars of the four members, restored by technology to their pop star primes. (ABBAtars, the producers call them.) But it’s also performed by the real ABBA, in the sense that they sang the songs, and danced the dances, in a studio in Sweden, and motion-capture technology allowed those performances — the singing, the dancing, even the chat between the songs — to be combined, on “stage”, with a live 10-piece band and a spectacular light show. The effect is uncanny. It’s not quite correct to say one feels oneself to be present at an ABBA concert in 1979. You are aware (just about, and sometimes not even) that it is 2022, and that in real life the members of ABBA don’t look like that anymore.”

Should Bowie get a similar treatment? I’m not so sure. If my understanding is correct, the actual, living members of ABBA contributed the newly recorded music and motion-captured moves for their avatars. Bowie obviously isn’t going to be around to do that. So what would be hearing? Familiar studio recordings being LLP-synced by holograms? If live recordings were used instead, would we hear fan reaction from the recording? Would the virtual Bowie virtually banter with the real audience? The ABBA concerts apparently feature a live band— so would we hear recordings of the likes of Mick Ronson backing Bowie, or would we be hearing some random guy, actually on stage, hoping not to miss his cue?

Reviews of Voyage, for instance the Esquire article, indicate that the creators of the ABBA experience got it right and that the overall experience is, for lack of a better way of putting it, really cool! I won’t say that I wouldn’t be curious, but I’m also uneasy at the idea of the actual Bowie having had no input in the project.

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that Bowie himself would have probably approved, and maybe even have been miffed not to be first out of the gates. So, we’ll see. The clip above certainly makes the ABBA version seem well done…