Bette Midler – Stay With Me – Experience The Divine Tour – 1993 – it baffles me why there aren’t more views on Bette’s performances of Stay With Me. Are the performances just too intense? I mean I’m drained after listening to any of them. I’ve heard people sing it with “better voices” but they don’t even come close to evoking the emotions Bette bleeds out of this song. And I can be objective. It’s very rare when I like somebody’s version better than Bette’s, but I have found them. I might not be able to fill up a whole hand with the versions, but they’re there. Anyway, I just think this song should be higher in views on any channel, but maybe her comedy takes are just more popular. This song alone should get her in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame – Don, Mister D
Truthfully I have always felt all the other performances I have seen of this song, none of them live up to the one in The Rose. I found the performance of the song in her tour that promoted music from the film, in Europe I think, quite stellar as well from the standpoint that she was singing it before it became famous…but all of the other live versions of the song after that amazing musical moment on the big screen never sounded quite as perfect as the one in the film to me. I also listened to a bootleg copy of her first time performing the song in rehearsal concerts for The Rose and she stops midway and says “what the f**k is the name of this song…” or something like that. It was awful! lol
I hear you, I just disagree. I find something different to like in each version. My favorites even fluctuate.