Names and faces
Danny DeVito has gotten his own day in his native New Jersey. The Asbury Park Press reports the Asbury Park City Council honored the actor Saturday night by declaring his birthday,
Nov. 17, as “Danny DeVito Day” in his hometown. The honor was announced as DeVito appeared at the Asbury Park
Music and Film Festival. DeVito starred in the classic TV series Taxi and films including Twins and Batman Returns.
He starred in the hit comedy It’s Always
Sunny in Philadelphia. The 73-year-old was born in Neptune Township and raised in Asbury Park. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy also spoke at the festival, saying: “Danny has never forgotten where he came from.”
The Swedish pop group ABBA announced it has reunited after a 35-year hiatus to record a new album and tour the world — but with a 21st century twist: The quartet will be replaced onstage by digital avatars of their former selves. Hologram-style re-creations of Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad will perform a couple new songs in a TV special later this year in the build-up to the tour. Simon Fuller, the creator of American Idol, is organizing the concert series using a mix of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. “The decision to go ahead with the exciting ABBA avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence,” the band wrote on its Instagram. “We all four felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio.” Bands can make hundreds of millions of dollars from reuniting for a global tour. The Guns N’ Roses reunion grossed $292.5 million in 2017, making it the biggest tour of the year after U2. The potential windfall from a hologram tour is less clear. Promoters and artists have used holograms for stunts, including a performance at the Coachella Music Festival by deceased rapper Tupac Shakur. But ABBA is perhaps the first major music group to tour the world in a digital form. ABBA rose to fame after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 and went on to record hit songs “Dancing Queen,” “Take A Chance on Me” and “Mamma Mia.” Andersson and Ulvaeus composed a musical called Mamma Mia! that was later adapted into a couple of movies. The band members have performed together just once since the 1980s, at a private party in 2016, and have long said they will never tour live together again.