Three Standing Ovations for Victoria Banks

by Helen Heubi

Thunderous applause and a standing ovation welcomed Victoria Banks to the stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House on Saturday 7 August, 2010. The dazzling evening began with a cymbal salute from the band, introducing “The Wheel”, Victoria’s award-winning single, and ended on an intimate note with “The Other Side”, interpreted by no other instrument than her expressive voice. A final standing ovation had brought on this moving encore, and another followed it.

Victoria couldn’t help repeating from time to time that she always loves to return to Gravenhurst to perform in her native Muskoka. It’s been a long way from Port Carling, where she was born, to Toronto University for a BA in zoology, to Nashville, the “City of Dreams”, where she has worked for the past ten years. Pursuing her greatest passion, song writing, has not been easy. “Nashville gives you a roller-coaster ride of emotions,” she says.

Powerful words and music roll out of Victoria’s life experiences. In between songs, she shared some of these with us. Her songs tell it like it is. What to do with a wedding ring that would not go away by itself, years after the joyous marriage, the painful awakening and the inevitable divorce? The answer came in a song. 

Victoria’s gifts for writing lyrics and music had been discovered not long after she came to Nashville. She tailors her songs to the singers who request them. One artist she collaborated with is Jessica Simpson, whose rendering of “Come on Over” was rated highest charting debut country artist's single in Billboard history. Victoria knew her career had moved up a vital notch when, driving along a country road near Nashville, she heard one of her own compositions on the air for the first time. Her car radio was broadcasting Sara Evans singing “Saints and Angels”.

While flying to flooded Nashville in May of this year, after being away during the worst of its disaster, Victoria wrote a song of courage and survival, inspired by  emails from her friends there. Some had lost everything. Beneath her plane, where she expected to see downtown lights, she saw only darkness. The Grand Old Opry sat in ten feet of water. Other musicians rallied to  produce her song, “City of Dreams”, as a video, now available on the Red Cross site www.CityOfDreamsNashville.com. All proceeds from the video downloads on this site go to the Red Cross for victims of the Tennessee flood. 

You are now reading a review written by someone who grew up steeped in traditional folk music, and plenty of classical, has heard a lot of jazz and kind of gets it, but is basically unfamiliar with Country. Like Victoria's Dad, mine had a large collection of music by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and many others whose names are not all easy to spell. Unlike her, I did not have a rock-and-roll epiphany in high school. On this sketchy background are based my perceptions of her powerful 2010 Saturday night concert at the Gravenhurst Opera House.

Despite differences in genre and generation, every song has roots. Listening to Victoria’s compositions arising from her own life, I realized that they come to her from a variety of sources like the blues, rock-and-roll, the simplest of folk melodies and more, all subtly grounded in the classics of her childhood. She speaks many languages of music, has made them her own and invented more, setting herself free to fly into new dimensions. In “Saints and Angels” the melody seems to have upward motions like wings.

In July Victoria Banks was nominated by the CCMA for the categories “Female Artist of the Year” and “Songwriter of the year”. The CCMA Awards show will be broadcast from Edmonton, Alberta, on Sunday 12 September on CBC and CMT. According to the tour destinations on her website, she will be performing in Edmonton on the previous day.

Now I share with you what Victoria and an audience member wrote in Facebook about Saturday’s concert. First Victoria:

“Wow, what an amazing show tonight at the Gravenhurst Opera House! Thanks to my hometown crowd for making me feel so welcome!” 

And now Susan Penwarden from the audience:

“Thanks for the amazing concert tonight. You now officially have one more true fan my husband. You blew him away with your very last song. We both believe a true test of a singer’s ability is to sing with no back up and you passed with flying colours. We will definitely will be seeing you again! Thanks again. You made our hearts happy. 

Les and Sue

P.S. best of luck at the CCMA's”

Victoria Banks has an informative, user-friendly website, where you can find her music, tour details, journal, store for CDs and t-shirts, and her biography in written and video form. This video really drew me in with its warmth and brilliance. Hers is an attractive, tuneful site to enjoy, and to keep in touch with her and her career path as it gathers more and more glitter overlaying the gold of her life story. 

http://www.victoriabanks.net

Scroll down to see more reviews of the 2010 Summer, and earlier Seasons

Click on the link below to view future shows.

http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/