This Bette pays off
Divine Miss M as always -- sassy & flashy
By JANE STEVENSON - Toronto Sun

TORONTO - The Divine Miss M may pay tribute to another great singer on her latest Grammy-nominated album Bette Midler Sings The Rosemary Clooney Songbook.

But that new disc was represented by just one song last night -- Tenderly -- at the Air Canada Centre as Midler's Kiss My Brass tour touched down for her first visit to the city in a decade.

Instead, the singer and her large and lively band, which include a five-man brass section and that perennial female dancing-singing trio known as the Harlettes, preferred to keep the mood mostly upbeat.

And with her quick wit, potty mouth, campy costumes and flashy set inspired by a turn-of-the-century Coney Island amusement park, the 58-year-old singer had no trouble keeping the crowd of 11,000 -- a couple thousand shy of a sell-out -- entertained.

(Photo: Fred Thornhill)

Let's put it this way: Midler, dressed in a sailor suit and hat, made her entrance riding a floating carousel horse, whom she later dubbed Seabiscuit and claimed was biopolar.

"I have returned!" she announced. "You didn't think the most dark and depressing period in history would keep me away, did you?"

Midler, an outspoken critic of such right-wingers as George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh throughout the evening, even managed to get in a couple of digs at former Toronto mayor Mel Lastman. "If ever there was a Jew that needed to retire to Florida -- He's the one!"

Still, she lauded the city's liberal marriage laws -- "Hello Toronto! The gay marriage capital of the world!" -- and was impressed by the large pot bust in the former Molson Brewery in Barrie -- "That's what I call one-stop shopping!"

Part vaudevillian, part stand-up comic, Midler's impressive voice sometimes took a backseat to her vast array of other talents.

Her "characters" ranged from Sophie Tucker, which saw her dress up in a purple muumuu and stagger across the stage in high heels while telling off-colour jokes, to her long-running Delores Delago mermaid, who partially performed a Broadway medley in a motorized wheelchair.

But the most self-deprecating bit of all was a hilarious videotaped Judge Judy segment where CBS took on Midler for her failed sitcom of a couple of years ago.

Gary Coleman played the court bailiff and Judy complained that Bette's acting was "loud, vulgar and over-the-top."

"Give Meryl Streep a sitcom -- see how she does," wailed Midler.

"She'd be eating through a tube in two weeks!'

Not that there weren't a few genuinely poignant moments: Like the ballads Skylark, Wind Beneath My Wings and The Rose or when Midler herself broke down in tears toward the end of From A Distance, all of which inspired standing ovations.

She even quietly paid tribute to children's educator Mr. Rogers and dueted with him, via video, on I Like To Be Told.

Midler, however, never wanted to remain too serious for too long with pop tarts like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears also getting the sharp-tongued treatment.

Complaining about seeing Aguilera in concert wearing pasties and a G-string, Midler complained: "I opened the door for trashy singers with big t-ts and don't you forget it!"

As for Spears, during a segment where she sang, Going To The Chapel, accompanied by pictures of failed celebrity unions, Midler pronounced: "We were going to show Britney's marriage, but by the time we got the photos developed, it was over!"

Canadian Press via Yahoo news

(CP) - The divine Miss M - Bette Midler (news) herself - was in Toronto earlier this week to sing and share wisecracks with a packed house at the Air Canada Centre.

"You Canadians must be so tired hearing all the guff the Americans are throwing at you," said Midler, who starred in The First Wives Club and her own television show Bette. "It's all your fault - mad cows, the big blackout, William Shatner (news), oh my God." Midler seemed particularly amused by the big marijuana bust in Barrie, Ont., on the weekend.

"Wasn't it so convenient that they were growing it in an old brewery? I think that's so hilarious. That is so funny. Talk about your one-stop shopping, huh? I'll have a two-four and a couple of grams right this minute, thank you very much."

She also poked fun at Toronto's former mayor Mel Lastman for his "Who's WHO?" comments about the World Health Organization (news - web sites) last spring during the SARS (news - web sites) emergency, and joked about the proliferation of gay weddings in Toronto.

Bette's got to have shtick
Globe and Mail
By ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN

Most pop stars over 50 spend their time reminding people of the things that first made them famous. Bette Midler, uniquely, gives nearly equal time to the task of recalling other performers' successes. Her current Kiss My Brass show is a singing, dancing, wise-cracking museum of entertainment. Its guest stars are nearly all dead: Rosemary Clooney, the Andrews Sisters, Mr. Rogers (of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood), Sophie Tucker, and that iconic, doomed belter (modelled on Janis Joplin) that Midler played in her 1979 film, The Rose.

Midler, who turned 59 last month, has been singing for over 30 years. Her show-biz memory goes back much further, and she's not afraid to use it. It's hard to imagine anyone else doing a stadium tour that includes a lengthy impersonation of Sophie Tucker telling smutty jokes. Tucker, who lived long enough to become a regular on The Ed Sullivan Show (she died in 1966), was a creature of old-time vaudeville, who got her start as a black-face "coon shouter."

Midler has good reason to respect her forebears, because they have been good to her. Her first Top 10 hit, in 1972, was a version of the Andrews Sisters' Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy that differed hardly at all from the war-time original. Quite a lot of her material for Kiss My Brass is retro stuff, from Everything's Coming Up Roses to Chapel of Love to Tenderly (sung before images of Clooney, whose songbook is the subject of Midler's latest album), and her performances recalled the Golden Oldie versions more than they departed from them. You got the feeling that for her, the art of the cover vanishes into the craft of impersonation: She can always get it for you retail.

Impersonation is a talent of actors and comics, and Midler, who studied drama at university and got her start in a New York cabaret, is both. Most of the time, on Monday, she was all three at once, except when she sobered up and delivered an inspirational ballad such as The Rose or Wind Beneath My Wings.

Her show is a rolling cabaret, with tons of jokes, and skits that could have come out of the old Carol Burnett Show. Most of her gags were written by Bruce Vilanch, who does the funny stuff for the Oscars, but she must have had somebody scribbling at the hotel, because she got good mileage from Mel Lastman, mad cow and that big marijuana bust in Barrie, Ont.

Her 13-piece band included several alumnae from the Royal Crown Revue, a retro ensemble that shares her veneration for mid-century pop culture. Three Harlettes sang, danced and made good sport during Midler's skits, even covering for her when, incredibly, she forgot the words for part of a signature tune, You Gotta Have Friends.

By that time, she had been on the stage for nearly three hours, kibbitzing, belting out songs and riffing on the madness of King George Dubya and the "social winter" of our times. The 11,000 fans in the place knew her basic shtick, and seemed to like her variations on it, both naughty and nice.

In the end, the furniture told her story as much as the songs did. Her set was a big glitzy evocation of Coney Island, with a handsome sweep-curtain showing sailors and their dames (no other word will do) strutting and groping along the boardwalk in muscular Thomas Hart Benton style. Coney Island was what she was offering: a big baggy entertainment, often tacky, sometimes fun, with several of those weary moments when you wondered whether you'd ever find your way back to the main gate.

David F., Canuck BetteHead:-)
Toronto

Last night was my first time seeing “The Divine” live in almost a decade, and today I’m experiencing a mix of sheer joy and mild sadness. Joy, because the show was everything I was expecting, and more. Sadness, because it wasn’t long enough for me, and I’m afraid I’ll never get the chance to experience something like it again.

It started last night around 7:30 when I arrived at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Canada. It was my first visit to the arena that was built, I assume, primarily as a venue for hockey and basketball…obviously not for concerts. We all had a drink, only one, and were appalled at the prices. Then we checked out the souvenir bar, and were once again aghast at the prices of the items - $25 for a program, $45 for a t-shirt. I was a little disappointed that my budget would not permit me to splurge.

My companions and I had great seats – the best I’ve ever had for a Bette concert – on the floor, 26 rows back – and, upon entering the stadium, we were all impressed by the look of the stage. Before the show, we tried to guess exactly where Bette would be when she descended on Seabiscuit. The audience appeared, from my perspective, to be much older than I recalled from my last 2 Divine experiences – as Bette herself says, everyone else is older, I’m the only one who remains ageless! Lots of grey hair, anyway.

The show was about 20 minutes late – we all wondered why – except that we could see that many around us had not yet taken their seats, which was somewhat irritating. Is that just a Canadian or Torontonian thing? Why do people wait until the very last minute to sit?

Once the show started, we were all pretty much floored and in awe – and, Bette rode in from the left side of the stage, from behind a black curtain, not where we had expected at all. I have to agree with the curmudgeonly review on one aspect – the sound, at least at the beginning, sucked. It was very hard to make out the lyrics to “Kiss My Brass”, and I feared that we would be straining to make out what Miss M. would be saying all night, but as things progressed, the techies worked it out, or our ears became more accustomed to it, not really sure. Bette looked good, and sounded great, and got everyone going right at the beginning with her mention of the pot bust north of Toronto, and former Toronto mayor (I hate to even admit it) Mel Lastman. She was cooking, and the energy was infectious. The crowd was respectful – it really didn’t get crazy – and, I’m not sure how many responded with the “Ain’t you got a vase?” punch-line – I was too busy saying it myself.

There was a standing ovation after “When a Man Loves a Woman”, the first of many – I think the others were for “Wind Beneath My Wings” and, of course, when “The Rose” logo appeared, and then the clip where she shouts “Motherf***ers”, and then she came out in the hot leather boots and rock princess dress, we were up and not about to sit down. After the band introductions, Bette had to tell us to sit down, for God’s sake.

There was sort of a recurring loss of memory theme, I noticed. The first time, about half way through the first act, she said she had spent about half an hour the other day, trying to remember the name for a calculator. Then during the band intros, she started to introduce Bette Sussman, and got off on a tangent, leaving the band leader standing in the dark, shrugging her shoulders (she got her due, once Bette M. realized the faux pas, and was thoroughly embarrassed).

Finally, during the “Friends” curtain call, she forgot the words, and asked the band to stop – they didn’t, and the Harlettes helped her out. It was funny, and actually, the only time any of us were brought to the realization that this woman may actually be the age we knew she was – she certainly didn’t move, look or sound like it.

Some in my posse thought the videos and the “Delores” section went on too long – I, of course, loved every second, although, I wasn’t as impressed with the Judge Judy vid, as I was expecting to be – maybe I’d already heard too much about it – and, I thought Bette looked kinda plump in her outfit in it – was that intentional?

Oh, and who sang the original of the “Sideshow” tune that Bette used to open act 2? Is that a new addition – I don’t see it listed. She sang one of my favourites, too – “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today”.

Anyway, I guess that’s it – can’t think of much else that everyone else hasn’t already said - hope it wasn’t too long.

I loved it, loved it, loved it! Can’t wait until she goes on tour again!!!