BETTE MIDLER
OLD SCHOOL RULES
Boston Phoenix
BY MATT ASHARE

Photo: Kelly Davidson

(Thank you BaltoBoy Steve for finding this)

Getting me to commit to a Bette Midler show wasn’t all that easy — just ask my mom. She had wanted me to take her to Midler’s first swing through the FleetCenter a couple months back, but I was out of town (that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it). So I really had no choice when Bette made her triumphant return to the Fleet this past Monday. It’s one of the lesser-known commandments: thou shalt take thy Jewish mother to see Bette Midler if the opportunity presenteth itself. And presenteth it did.

So, yeah, Midler’s not exactly my cup of tea. When she pours it on, you can generally count on an audience that skews a little older, as in people who applaud at the mere mention of Rosemary Clooney’s name, and a lot female, as in large roving bands of women, and gay, as in smartly dressed young men who really ought to have the right to marry. After all, it’s not as if heterosexuals had been doing such a great job in that department. But I digress . . .

Of course, Midler does a fair amount of digressing herself. And that’s actually one of the best things about seeing her perform. Never mind the big, booming voice that’s always comfortably and confidently on key, — her singing is often incidental to what she does when she gets in front of an audience. She’s an old-school entertainer, as in lots and lots of topical stage banter, plenty of punch lines, and a quick costume change every 15 or 20 minutes. She was also quite a bit racier than I’d expected, dropping more f-bombs than Axl Rose the last time I saw him at the Fleet, and almost as many as Ozzy Osbourne. And as she herself pointed out right before her band kicked "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B" into high gear, "I opened the door for trashy singers with big tits." Which is another way of saying that a fair degree of burlesque fuels any Bette Midler show. She even had a trio of big-bottomed dancing girls along to drive that point home. The Suicide Girls don’t have anything on Bette.

On a stage set up to look a little like Coney Island back in the day, Midler arrived by descending slowly astride a carousel pony, whereupon she indulged in a some playful double entendre singing/slinging ("Check out my chassis") that ended with a rousing "Kiss my (gr)ass." The backing band swung hard enough to teach the Royal Crown Revue and Squirrel Nut Zippers a lesson or two. And before the first round of applause had died down, she was off and running with the first of many monologues: "Just between us, I’m not sure I could run the world, but I sure wouldn’t fuck it up as bad as the men who are running it now." Bad-dum-bah. Ballads and more banter followed. And even a serious number or two. But mostly it was just Bette being Bette in front of crowd happy to revel in all that is Bette. And for one night, that included me.