Bette Midler show is divine
Gund Arena concert is part carnival, part cabaret with comedy, hit songs
By Malcolm X Abram
In recent interviews, Bette Midler has said she’s toned down her bawdy
Divine Miss M stage persona as befitting her age and status.
But watching her Monday night performance at Gund Arena, it was difficult to
tell exactly how the 58-year-old singer has mellowed if at all.
The actress-singer’s aptly titled show, Kiss My Brass, was big, brassy,
sassy and ribald, hearkening back to Midler’s days in 1970s New York’s
cabaret and bathhouse circuit.
Even with elaborate staging, a 12-piece band and of course a new trio of
singing “Harlettes,” Midler managed to transform the Gund into a massive
cabaret with a healthy dollop of vaudeville. The audience, made up largely
of fans at or around Midler’s age, happily digested every dirty joke,
schmaltzy ballad and the star’s over-the-top persona.
Keeping with her stage’s Coney Island theme, Midler made a grand entrance on
a white carousel horse that floated across the stage while she belted out
Kiss My Brass.
“You like my horse?” she asked the audience.
“I got him from the police stables” was one of several North Coast-themed
jokes.
Midler kept the one-liners coming fast and furious, poking at the wild beard
of captured Saddam Hussein — he’s the first subject on Queer Eye For the
Dictator Guy; LeBron James — “I invited him but his mother said he
couldn’t come because it was past his bedtime”; and the latest crop of
young female pop stars — “I opened the door for singers with bad taste and
big (breasts), but do you think they call and say thank you!”
Midler showed her voice is still powerful with tightly arranged versions of
ballads, including Skylark, a tear-inducing I Think It’s Going to Rain
Today, and an impassioned When A Man Loves A Woman that brought much of the crowd to its feet.
Midler revived her popular mermaid character Delores DeLago for an extended
Broadway medley and sang a ballad about the aftermath of 9/11. She ended the show with some tried-and-true hits, including pitch-perfect renditions of
From a Distance and Wind Beneath My Wings and a slow, bluesy Do You Wanna
Dance.
Midler may not be the wild-haired whirlwind she was in the 1970s, but
neither age nor fame has blunted her comic edge or talent.
