Motown Meltdown, Saturday, April 21, 8 p.m., Commodore Ballroom, 868 Granville St., Vancouver. Tickets: $32.75 + service charge or $45 at the door. Available online at ticketmaster.ca.
Singer-actress Olivia Steele Falconer has Motown and Mercury on the mind.
The graduating Windsor student’s musical interests may be eclectic, but there’s no second guessing her go-to karaoke song. It’s the timeless power ballad “Don’t Stop Believing.”
But Steele Falconer will send Journey packing this Saturday when she takes the stage at Motown Meltdown. Now in its 15th soulful year, the event brings the sounds of Motown into the storied Commodore Ballroom and gets everyone moving.
Steele Falconer is no stranger to Motown – the distinctive songs fuse with the furniture in her musical household. It will also be Steele Falconer’s fourth time taking the stage at Motown Meltdown.
Last year she sang “I’d Rather Go Blind,” by Etta James.
“That was probably one of my favourite songs I’ve ever sang before,” says Steele Falconer.
This year she’s going with James again – “A Sunday Kind Of Love.”
Asked what draws her to the R&B queen, Steele Falconer is slightly verklempt.
“Just the feeling that all of her songs bring – I really connect with them in a way. It’s just such a pleasure singing them,” she says.
Steele Falconer is jazzed about Saturday’s lively Motown event, as always.
“I always look forward to coming back,” she says. “It’s so much fun and the band is amazing. And the crowd is so much fun. It’s always one of the highlights of my year.”
The rest of the year Steele Falconer’s schedule is filled with acting gigs and singing engagements.
Last week she joined fellow Windsor senior chamber choir members for a musical showcase at the Canadian Rocky Mountain Festival in Banff.
“It was really, really fun,” says the alto singer, adding with a laugh, “it was pretty cold.”
Last year the choir travelled to London for a larger tour. A highlight for Steele Falconer was singing at the university that Freddie Mercury went to.
“He’s up there with some of my idols,” she says.
As a young thespian, Steele Falconer was always cast in Annie in local productions – and always played Molly, Annie’s best friend. She figures she got the role because of the spunky energy she brought to those auditions.
It was while Steele Falconer was performing in Annie at Theatre Under the Stars that she caught the attention of an acting agent. Nine years old at the time, Steele Falconer auditioned and earned a role in the American sci-fi TV series Caprica, playing the younger version of the lead female character.
While Steele Falconer has many acting credits to her name and has also won four young artist awards, her favourite experience has been working for two seasons on Once Upon a Time. Steele Falconer was recently invited to sing at a Once Upon a Time comic-con event in Vancouver, where all of the fans were invited to sing karaoke with the cast. There were a lot of Disney song requests, reports Steele Falconer.
“I was up there singing all night. It was two hours of really fun singing with the fans,” she says.
A surreal acting experience for Steele Falconer was filming an indie movie, Louder than Words, in New York with Hope Davis and David Duchovny, who played her parents. In the movie, based on a real-life story, Steele Falconer played a 13-year-old who died of rabies.
Recently, Steele Falconer filmed a part on a new TV thriller series, called Sacred Lies, which is Facebook’s first foray into scripted television and their answer to Netflix. Based on both the Grimm Brothers’ tale “The Handless Maiden” and the novel The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes, the series, penned by two True Blood writers follows a handless teen who escapes from a cult and finds herself in juvenile detention.
Steele Falconer is gearing up for graduation and focusing on post-secondary plans, which will include acting and singing as much as she can.
Her father, David Steele, will also be performing at Motown Meltdown on Saturday. While he leans towards R&B and rock, his daughter says “he can do anything.”
From his home studio in North Vancouver, Steele creates music for film and TV. Some of the artists Steele has recorded with include Bon Jovi, Cher, The Cult, David Lee Roth, Mötley Crüe, Bob Rock, Def Leppard and Bette Midler.
Several other North Shore singers will be performing at Motown Meltdown, which serves as a benefit for Seva Canada: Joani Bye, Roy Forbes, Linda Kidder and Will Sanders. Twenty-five dynamic performers, accompanied by a scorching 12-piece band, will bring the Motown songbook to life.
Motown Meltdown organizers promise there will be “Dancing in the Streets” as revellers celebrate the music and musicians of a powerful era, including Diana Ross, Otis Redding, Martha & the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Jackson 5, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and many more.
