SHARON OSBOURNE Is Open To ABBA-Style BLACK SABBATH Avatar Show

Sharon Osbourne has told Metal Hammer magazine that she is open to the possibility of a BLACK SABBATH avatar-style show.

Asked if she would consider the idea of taking inspiration from the technology originally developed for ABBA's "Voyage" show in London for a SABBATH virtual project in the future, Ozzy Osbourne's wife and manager said: "Sure I would, yeah.

"Technology keeps moving on and on," she explained. "You can do incredible things now, so what you could do in five years will be even better.

"You never know what the opportunities are," she added.

One legendary rock band which is already in the process of developing an avatar show is KISS. The KISS avatars were created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and were financed and produced by the Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment, which is behind "ABBA Voyage".

Using cutting-edge technology, Pophouse Entertainment Group, which was founded by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus, will create digital versions of KISS. The project was previewed at the final KISS concert in New York in December 2023.

Last December, KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons told "The Zak Kuhn Show" podcast that the technology originally developed for ABBA's "Voyage" "is now yesterday's news." Asked if the KISS avatar show will "totally blow away" "ABBA Voyage", Simmons said: "It already does, yeah. Uh-huh… Technology, I'm sure you keep up with it, is growing by leaps and bounds… The future is here. A.I. now fixes itself and teaches itself. And so the technology has advanced by leaps and bounds even where the ABBA show was. You could swear ABBA was live on stage, but you have to look straight forward. If you look to the left or right, you can see your neighbor sitting behind you or next to you. And so you have that kind of, 'Oh, this is reality. And what's on stage looks like reality.' But as you know, with 3D glasses, virtual glasses, your sense of what's real and what's not is skewed. So there's all that."

Last October, KISS frontman Paul Stanley was also full of praise for "ABBA Voyage", which has been very lucrative since debuting in May 2022. He told "Steve-O's Wild Ride! Podcast": "Yeah, that lives in London, and that's sold out for four years now, I think — every night, eight shows a week," Stanley said. "And it's amazing because I've seen it twice and the audience is just thrilled and so much a part of it. It's not like, 'Oh, we're watching something that's not real.' It's real… I mean, you can see through the clothes. They move back and forth, they interact. It's unbelievable. And when I saw it the first time, at the end of the show, the curtain pulled back and [the] ABBA [members as they look] today, the four of them, came walking out. And I was, like, 'Wow, I'm here on this night to see [the four of them at the performance].' [But] it wasn't them. That's how good it is."

Regarding KISS's apparent willingness to fully embrace modern technology, Simmons told Rockast: "Well, everything evolves. We didn't always stand up on two legs. A few million years ago, we were on four legs. Everything evolves, and you either evolve or you become obsolete or you die. So technology is here. A.I. is here. Virtual reality is here. Everything is here. And we don't wanna be yesterday's news. So even the end of something can be the beginning of something. But we're very excited — and proud. I keep saying proud, because that's what it is."

In a separate interview with TMZ, Simmons was asked if fans will embrace the concept of a concert that is A.I.-driven and consists of nothing but holograms. Gene responded: "It's not just, 'Okay, they're gonna show up on stage just like they did before, but it's holograms. No. That's an archaic term. Technology has advanced so far, you won't believe it.

"We spent some time at George Lucas's place and did motion capture stuff secretly," he continued. "We didn't talk to anybody — media or anything — about it, because we wanted this to be like nothing anybody's ever seen. And I will tell you, if you've seen the ABBA show in London, which is phenomenal, this is gonna be beyond anything you've ever seen.

"So the future is here, and with our friends at Pophouse, who are visionaries, we're gonna be doing things that no band and no musical — nobody's ever done before," Gene added. "Our events are going to be multi, I wanna say multidimensional. You just won't believe your eyes. Things are gonna be so much larger than life in front of you. You won't believe it. We've already seen the first fragments of that. It's just jaw-droppingly amazing."