Radio City Music Hall
October 13, 2004
| Radio
City Music Hall Last night was just splendid. Full of surprises,
as many twists and turns as Billy Joel on a country road. But I
digress...I was sitting in row BBB in the pit pit pit. Unbelievably
close, just the way I like it. I will get the celeb sightings out
of the way first: Candice Bergen, Bernadette Peters, Paul Schaffer,
and Kim Catrall. There may have been more, but that's who I saw.
Radio City Crowd TIVO'd Debates to See Bette Well there I was in my orch seat at Radio City Music
Hall. This is just about the best place to see Bette. As I waited
for the lights to dim in this glorious theatre I reminisced about
taking my mom to see her 10 years ago during the “Experience
the Divine” engagement. I am taking her again for her 81rst
b-day to the Philly show. Bette arrived on stage riding the carousel horse smiling and proud to be performing on her own turf. “Hello New York City!”, and away we went. She stayed pretty much on course as far as the set list goes. “Kiss My Brass”, “Big Noise”, I Think it’s Gonna Rain Today”. The audience lapped it up. The Bush jokes about him seeing her in concert, (coke dealer paid for his seats) and Laura selling marijuana brownies drew cheers.. She said she was glad everyone decided to TIVO the debate and come see her. The place was sold out. Everything seemed to go as planned and the audience loved it. The screens showed Judge Judy convicting her for bad TV and mentioning for Bette to be quiet or she would be punished again for the Jackie Susann movie. “Chapel of Love” worked fine which segued into The Britney Bunch, which I loved. When Mr. Rogers came on the screen the audience started to laugh, thinking it was another fun bit. But as she sang "I like to be Told" the audience quieted down. Soph jokes pretty standard. Although there was a one about a character coincidently named Mr. Kornfeld that had me in hysterics. “Shiver Me Timbers” brought chills to me, I love that song. The horse carried her away. Act II Then came ballads, “From a Distance” and my personal faaavoritte, “Do You Want to Dance?" After she sang “Wind Beneath My Wings”, an audience member gave her flowers. Bette lamented aloud, “Where should I put them?” Audience member said, “Aint you got a vase? Bette responded with something like, "you know my jokes better than me". I love unplanned stuff. She put them on the piano and told the band to continue with ballads, which meant no “Keep on Rockin”. Bette went into “The Rose” (sing-a-long, and left the stage. The audience had been on it’s feet for most of the second half. Bette returned still wearing the wonderful pink dress and told the audience she would sing a new number, which was still being worked on. “In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening” was a welcome way to end the show. Since it was NYC, opening night at Radio City there were a few celebs. Paul Shaeffer and Bernadette Peters. The icing on the cake came when I was lucky enough to go backstage.
I met Martin, Toni, and of course Bette, who commented, what happened
to your hair (it’s shaved)? I responded, “That’s
what you said 10 years ago at the New Years Eve after party in SF.
She bounced back with, “gee I guess I have to get a new line”.
I loved it..Bette was gracious and happy. Variety -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Early on in her show, Bette Midler kvetches that
Christina and Britney have never phoned to thank her for her pioneering
work. "I opened the door for trashy singers with big tits,
and don't you forget it," she declares. Miss M., however, has
taken a cue from the behemoth arena shows of those junior upstarts
with the elaborate staging of her "Kiss My Brass" tour.
The singer remains a supremely skilled entertainer whose richly
characterful voice has lost none of its warmth. But it's in the
scaled-back moments, free from production pyrotechnics, that Midler
really shines, separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of the
distance between this consummate pro and today's pop tarts. Sashaying into New York for a four-night stand at Radio City, the star shows no sign of flagging energy. As the Divine one herself says, with some justification, "I remain tireless, ageless and relentless. I am not retiring and you can't make me." Last seen in Gotham earlier this year at 20,000-seat Madison Square Garden, the switch to this comparatively intimate venue made some of the stadium accoutrements seem superfluous. Many of the video projections that run during numbers, though they may be a bonus to the far-flung audience in more cavernous halls, add little to the perf. The Coney Island and boardwalk sets otherwise endure the transition remarkably well and the spectacular lighting provides a vibrantly energized color palette. But on this smaller stage, it's the cleaner, simpler ideas that are the most captivating. "Do You Wanna Dance" is a high point, performed under a canopy of bobbing lanterns with backup girls the Staggering Harlettes in illuminated skirts. Of the more complex set pieces, a fussy preamble to Midler's seasoned Sophie Tucker routine of salty jokes, with the Harlettes as bathing beauties in color-coordinated striped beach cabanas, seems like protracted padding, not helped by uneven writing of the bawdy material. Much more successful is the return of wheelchair-using mermaid Dolores De Lago in her "Fishtails Over Broadway" revue. Descending from the ceiling on a fish-hook to the title song from "The Phantom of the Opera," the extended sketch serves up cleverly reworked showtunes from "Chicago," "Gypsy," "A Chorus Line" and "Oklahoma!," among others, along with a rousing yet lighthearted rendition of "Dreamgirls" power ballad "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." The physical rigors of mincing around the stage in a tail prompt Midler later to remark of Dolores, "She's not long for this world. I'm making a California roll out of her." While the crowd was wild for sentimental hits "Wind Beneath My Wings" and "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" from 1988 treaclefest "Beaches," Midler's vocals were at their most engaging in the less cosmeticized ballads that pre-date her Disney period --"Skylark," "Shiver Me Timbers," "The Rose" and "When a Man Loves a Woman," the latter packing an especially raw emotional punch. The more recent cover "Tenderly" -- one of three numbers from Midler's Rosemary Clooney tribute album -- also hits its mark. The video assist is usefully employed during a costume change with a filmed mock-"Judge Judy" segment, in which Midler takes the stand to defend her aborted sitcom "Bette," also wryly alluding to the train wreck of her Jacqueline Susann biopic "Isn't She Great." Acknowledging the limited audience for the CBS series, Midler amusingly sings, "Nobody but the Jews, nobody but the queens." Also funny is a video nod to short-lived celeb marriages -- the main raison d'etre for a routine walk-through of "Chapel of Love" -- that skewers Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, Liza Minnelli and David Gest ("At least we were spared the sex tapes"), Anna Nicole Smith and Colonel Sanders. For those of us old enough to have seen her concerts in the '70s, Midler has tempered her more outrageous instincts with time and her standard standup jokes about the Internet and Viagra lack the bite and joyful trashiness of some of her vintage rants. But the performer remains a truly wired, distinctive personality with wicked timing and rare versatility. When she takes command of the stage, her unique brass, sass and generosity radiate forth intact during even the most overproduced numbers. (Sound mix was initially problematic on opening night, particularly in the kickoff "Kiss My Brass" song, in which Midler's vocals were somewhat suffocated by the orchestra.) Performing Wednesday during the final Bush-Kerry debate before going home "to throw shoes at the TV screen all night," Midler spiked the evening with plenty of political barbs. Rush Limbaugh was pithily described as a "poor, fat, stupid, hypocritical, drug-addicted motherfucker," while on George W., Midler offered, "He came to see me in the '70s. His coke dealer got him really good seats." No matter how much she's mellowed ("These are the Lipitor years, folks, and they ain't easy"), Miss M. will never be entirely tamed.
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