Midler thrills Everett

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, December 8, 2004

Divine.

Fabulous.

Sensational.

They’ve all described Bette Midler for more than 30 years, and they all applied Tuesday night at the Everett Events Center.

The 59-year-old diva looked amazing – and she’d be the first to tell you so – donning a sailor outfit she said she wrestled away from a young man “down at the naval station.”

“I think he enjoyed it,” she quipped.

Midler nearly packed the Everett Events Center despite having already brought the first leg of her “Kiss My Brass” tour to Seattle’s KeyArena in February. This time around, Tuesday night’s show was the only stop in the Pacific Northwest.

Playing on a stage decorated like Coney Island at the turn of the 19th century, Midler took her fans on a roller-coaster ride for two hours.

Equipped with her trademark voice, dramatic flair and raunchy humor, she offered a full-fledged variety show rather than a concert, inspiring both huge laughs and sentimental tears.

Gasping for breath after just two songs, Midler said, “See, this is what it sounds like when you do your own singing.”

She kicked off the show with the tour’s upbeat namesake tune, “Kiss My Brass,” and the jazzy “Stuff Like That There.”

She tossed in some local jokes before delivering a beautiful rendition of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Skylark.”

Clips of Midler from the mid-1970s flashed on screens around the stage while she performed the same choreography as she did on “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

Midler took a few jabs at the likes of Anna Nicole Smith, Liza Minnelli and Britney Spears. But she laughed at herself, too, in an on-screen “Judge Judy” skit in which the judge ordered Midler to apologize for her short-lived CBS sitcom “Bette.”

Quickly, though, she was back to the sentimental, honoring her idol Rosemary Clooney with “Hey There” and “Tenderly” from her 2003 tribute album, “Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook.”

Her rousing, jazzed-up version of “When a Man Loves a Woman” brought the crowd to its feet, and Midler closed the first part of the show with a touching performance of “Shiver Me Timbers.”

To start the second act, Midler took on an alter ego as Dolores Del Lago, a mermaid longing to make it on Broadway, for a 20-minute sequence that included fishy spoofs on show tunes.

She again pulled heartstrings, performing a “duet” with the late Fred Rogers, also known as Mr. Rogers in the children’s TV neighborhood.

Saying Rogers taught kids about kindness, tolerance and good manners, “something I find missing today,” she sang “I Like To Be Told” along with the children’s show legend, who appeared on-screen.

Midler closed the show with a string of four of her biggest hits, “From a Distance,” “Do You Want to Dance?” “Wind Beneath My Wings” and “The Rose,” for which she led the audience in a sing-along.

She then announced her pleasure at being “in a bright blue state” – referring to Washington’s strong Democratic turnout in the presidential election – and left the audience dancing with one more Clooney tune, “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening.”

And we all went off into it feeling a little warmer.

Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.

Dan Bates / The Herald

Bette Midler took the Pacific Northwest by storm Tuesday night at the Everett Events Center.