Alameda Times-Star
Midler tour grabs ‘Brass’ ring
Business as usual for Bette — and she’s fab
By Chad Jones
STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, February 10, 2004 – DIVINE has become too small a word to describe Bette Midler.
From the release of her first album, “The Divine Miss M,” more than 30 years ago, Midler has been earning her self-appointed nickname. At first, Miss M was divine in the campiest sense of the word. As she evolved, succeeded, failed and bounced back too many times to count, Midler emerged as a genuine razzle-dazzle entertainer of the highest order.
Nowhere is Midler’s divinity more apparent than in her live shows. The stage gives her the freedom to be hilarious, bawdy, sappy, poignant and brave. Whatever else might be going on in her life or career, Midler can stand before an audience and let her superstar radiance go to work.
As she approaches 60 (she’s 58), you’d think Midler might consider toning down the outrageousness, cleaning up her potty mouth or shuffling the rock songs to the bottom of the pile. One look at the title of Midler’s new tour — “Kiss My Brass” — and you’ll see it’s business as usual for the brash Miss M.
The tour rolled into San Jose’s HP Pavilion on Saturday night and heads north for a stop at the Oakland Arena tonight.
Midler has never looked or sounded as good as she does in “Kiss My Brass.” She only seems to improve with age, and her comic timing is as sharp as it ever was, which is saying something.
With this big, wet smackeroo of a “Kiss,” Midler delivers a Broadway-size spectacle masquerading as a pricey concert with a top ticket price of $175.
Working with director Richard J. Alexander and choreographer Toni Basil, Midler has concocted a two-act show built on a Coney Island beach oardwalk/amusement park theme.
She makes her grand entrance on a flying carousel horse she calls Seabiscuit while belting the newly minted title song. Then, 70 minutes later, she sails away on the same horse while warbling a beautiful version of an oldie: Tom Waits’ “Shiver Me Timbers.”
“I have returned!” Midler shrieks at the top of the show after explaining that she had been away for a few years to “suffer quietly through my menopause.”
From beneath a head of bouncy Shirley Temple-like curls, Midler boasts: “I’m fabulous! Don’t I look it? Even I don’t know how I do it.”
The laughs and the songs continue to roll out for the show’s nearly three hours.
Musical surprises
Of course Midler does all her hits — “Wind Beneath My Wings,” “From a Distance” — and tells dusty old Sophie Tucker-like jokes. But she also has plenty of surprises.
You expect to hear “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” accompanied by three back-up singers known as the Staggering Harlettes. But the appearance of “Stuff Like That There,” a big-band gem from the flop movie “For the Boys,” is an unexpected delight.
It’s a thrill to hear old Midler standards like “Chapel of Love” and “Do You Wanna Dance,” but even more exciting to hear a “Beaches” soundtrack tune, Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today.”
Midler hauls out two cuts — “Come-on-a-My-House” and “Hey There” — from her recent Rosemary Clooney tribute album, but the evening’s most winsome chestnut is Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer’s “Skylark.”
In between songs and production numbers, Midler takes swipes at the Bush administration and delivers comic zingers penned by Bruce Vilanch and Erik Kornfeld. She even works in a bundle of local references to the Sharks, the traffic on 101 and the economic woes of Silicon Valley.
Videotaped segments provide some nice variety. One has Midler on “Judge Judy” whining about her canceled CBS sitcom. Another has her singing a duet with a video clip of Mr. Rogers.
Way to go, Dolores!
The centerpiece of Act 2 is the best-yet outing for lounge singer mermaid Dolores del Lago. Still in her electric wheel chair and still adept at twirling balls on a string, Dolores has set her sights on Broadway. This gives Midler and her Harlettes — also outfitted in fins and in wheelchairs — a chance to have their way with show tunes from the likes of “Chicago,” “West Side Story, “Hello, Dolly!” and, most memorably, “Dreamgirls.”
Watching Midler as Dolores roll around the floor and hop around on her big fin, you have to say this about that mermaid: She works her tail off.
A constant refrain in the evening is, “I’m not retiring, and you can’t make me.”
Why should Midler even think of retiring when she’s clearly at the top of her game?
During “The Rose,” Midler’s most beloved tune, the singer asked the near-capacity audience to sing along. Listening to the soft yet solid sound of thousands of people singing her song, Midler was moved to tears.
Maybe it was all show biz, but it worked. After all, nobody does show biz better — or brassier — than Bette Midler, the Divine Miss M and then some.
