January 22-28, 2004

music

Making Bette Divine

Bette Midler

by Sam Adams

rock/pop review

The days when Bette Midler had to win over her audience may be in the past, but don’t tell her that. Stray complaints about the cold notwithstanding, Midler worked the Wachovia Center like it was a small, smoke-filled club, peppering the crowd with one-liners as if vaudeville never went out of style. Full credit to Midler, or her writers, for throwing some local flavor into the stew: Amid the Stone Age jokes were references to the previous Sunday’s Eagles win (o, happy day!), the Mummers, even John and Milton Street. Dancing, hopping or cruising around the stage in a motorized wheelchair, Midler exuded such bun-busting brio she could have discharged her entertainment duties without singing a note.

In fact, the parts of the evening where Midler stood center stage and simply sang, unaccompanied by backup singers, roving band members or paddle-boat swans, risked seeming like a disappointment, and not only because they typically involved the schmaltzy ballads that took her out of the bathhouses and onto the charts. Whether crooning two damp tributes to Rosemary Clooney or "The Wind Beneath My Wings," Midler vanished inside the songs, waving her arms as if trying to stay afloat atop a tide of treacle.

Before she slipped into her evening dress, though, Midler tried on everything from a spangled sailor suit to a devil costume, not to mention pulling on a mermaid costume for the latest installment of her long-running "Fish Tales," which found aspiring aquatic chanteuse Delores De Lago making a run (or at least several quick hops) at Broadway, occasioning a series of groan-inducing piscatorial puns. ("All that Shad," et al.) It wasn't just the horn section that gave the "Kiss My Brass" tour its name: After riding out on an airborne merry-go-round horse, Midler crowed, "I'm not retiring, and you can't make me!" A few anti-Bush jabs and a gloppy 9/11 number (possibly called "Reliving September") notwithstanding, Midler's greatest rebuke to troubled times was the mere assertion of her presence. "Did you really think the most dangerous, terrifying period in American history could keep me away?" Feared, perhaps. But perish the thought.

Bette Midler Jan. 15, Wachovia Center