Keep the date.
Friday 24 February – Broncos Leagues Club – Red Hill (Brisbane), the intimate version of the Divine Miss M will be performing along with Craig Shaw (piano) and Chrissy Prowse (backing vocals) to help raise money for the Paddle Bass Strait event in favour of the wonderful charity: Bravehearts.
An exciting update for the Wollongong show on 18 Feb.
The promoter has decided to add some brass to the backing band. How simply Divine! It’s going to be a fabulous line up.
For information on tickets and venue location:
http://www.thebuilders.com.au/content/view/200/1/
Saturday 18 February – the Divine Miss M tribute show will be dazzling audiences at Illawarra Master Builders Club.
Shows can be booked a lot of different ways, mostly through the channels of marketing through Agents & Venues. This particular gig came out of a random conversation through Facebook.
Social networking at its best.
Sydney-siders – it’s only an hour down the road! Tell your friends to come and see a show that will make you laugh and make you cry! Featuring the wonderful talents of Vicky Welch and Monique Morrell along with Builders’ fabulous in-house band this will be a fantastic night not to miss.
Yes! The mermaid will be there!
Yes! I am bringing along my great-big-knockers!
Jokes, antics, and fabulous songs: From the energy of Bugle Boy & Beast of Burden, to the style of Miss Otis Regrets, and the heart of Wind Beneath My Wings and The Rose (not to mention the hilarity of Long John Blues, Hawaiiant War Chant & Pretty Legs-Great Big Knockers) this will be a night to remember!
Hope to see you there!
Annemarie
Performing a tribute to the Divine MIss M is huge. Costumes, band, backing singers, props, venue, stage etc. You just can’t do a big enough, glossy enough, and bold enough tribute to the Divine Miss M.
And sometimes, just on rare occasions, an intimate version of the show works so well. Just a pianist, buoyed along by backing tracks and Me – dressed as Bette, using a lot of the comedy content and audience rapport to make the show feel huge in a small space as you reach out and touch the people in the audience.
Unfortunately at a recent show – the whole “reaching out and touching people” got a little messy as the props for the song: “Pretty Legs, Great Big Knockers” went flying into the audience and took out a number of wine glasses.
This only fueled the hilarity of the event, and went on to prove that in the right situation, small shows really work, because sometimes it IS the little things that count.
Cherish forever what makes you unique, ‘cuz you’re really a yawn if it goes.
I wouldn’t say I invented tacky, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.
If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to?
The worst part of success is to try to find someone who is happy for you.
And an old favourite of mine, that I use in the show from time to time …
Everyone has their field of expertise … mine just happens to be tits! Do people dump on the Pope because all he ever talks about is God?
I shall leave you with that – wish you a fabulously Divine New Year, and hope that all your dreams come true.
Annemarie
The Intimate version of the Divine Miss M tribute show being hosted by Danny’s Restaurant Scarborough on Sat 22 October is pretty much sold out.
If you were hoping to get tickets, there may be a chance, as the cut-off for securing bookings (with a deposit) was today. After speaking with Danny yesterday, I believe a couple of those may have fallen off the list if they didn’t secure their booking, so if you’d like to be entertained by me, Annemarie, performing my Divine Miss M tribute show at the beautiful Danny’s Restaurant – give the restaurant a call on 3880 1900 TODAY!
Show & 3 course meal $75 (Deposit $25)
Boob jokes. Songs about Breasts. References to Tits.
They can do it all day in movies, magazines, billboards etc, but people often cringe a little when they see some of the content of my tribute show to Bette Midler: The Divine Miss M.
“Tits? Are you allowed to say that?”
Seriously? It’s comedy – deal with it. And ps: you’ve come to see Bette Midler, not Diana Ross. Anyway – for those of you who have read this far…I shall treat you to some good ol’ Bette Breast Humour:
“Everybody has their field of expertise – mine just happens to be tits! Do people dump on the Pope because all he ever talks about is God?”
“I’m living proof that big tits mean big bucks! I don’t have to be well informed! Just – well endowed!”
“… so i got one of those scales that you weigh mail (and cocaine) on – took out one of those suckers and weighed it. I wont tell ya how much it weighed but it cost $87.50 to send to Brazil … third class!”
“Pretty legs, Great big knockers … that’s what sells them tickets at the door” (photo from this song)
A special event.
The Divine Miss M tribute show is mostly performed with anything from a 6-8 piece backing band on a large stage with huge lighting. And certainly this is the ideal way to pay homage to the amazing Bette Midler.
Every so often it feels right to agree to do what I like to call “the intimate version” of the Divine Miss M tribute show. Just me, a pianist, costumes, wigs & props and a small audience specially primed to be Entertained. Fish-lovers be warned, there is no room for the Mermaid this time, but don’t worry, I still have a surprise in store for those who have faithfully followed this show throughout its lifetime.
Danny’s Restaurant on the beautiful shores of Moreton Bay at Scarborough will host this show on Saturday night – 22 October. Seats are limited, so you will need to book very soon. A beautiful 3 course meal and the show is $75 pp. Phone 07 3880 1900 to secure a booking. I don’t mind saying that this is MY favourite restaurant. I have never known a place to be so consistently fabulous with food, wines & service.
Bette Midler’s concert style includes up to 50% comedy. Her comedic timing and material selection is bold, hilarious and very topical.
Typical to her wonderful style, when Bette toured Australia in 2005, she hit the ground to get the ‘dirt’ on local politicians and issues in order to ‘have a go’ and Australianise some of her content.
Waves of mirth cascaded through the crowds to references such as: The Fish & Chips Bitch from Ipswich (esp for Qld fans) and good ol’ Johnny H copped a hiding as he was still PM in ’05.
The following year, at a performance in South East Queensland, while telling jokes in the style of Bette’s political commentary, a member of the audience overheard the following.
“Don’t you just hate it when those Americans come over here and rubbish our politicians?”
The audience member was a) pleased for me because obviously my American accent can fool a fool; and b) amazed at how some people Just Don’t Get It!
Enjoy some of Bette’s style with this wonderful song: Pretty Legs, Great Big Knockers (interspersed with Soph jokes).
Bette Midler added a new character to her plethora of onstage antics in 1979/1980. This mermaid was to become known as: Delores DeLago – the Toast of Chicago. If you look at footage from various concert tours over the last 30 years, you will find the Mermaid included in many amazing, colourful performances.
When I was putting together the Divine Miss M tribute show, I knew it would not be complete without Delores. Bette has written the mermaid section of the show in many different ways over the years … I have created a 15-20 minute section based on her:1800 DELORES – 12 Strokes to Satisfaction (the self-help program to help you raise the anchor attached to your life).
So these days I travel not only with a bunch of costumes, wigs and enough black eye liner to complete the transformation, but an extra suitcase to hold the mermaid costume and of course, the wheelchair.
Budgets for tribute shows within Australia do not cater for me to afford a 
motorized wheelchair for stage. It’s one thing to have a $4,000 prop lying around (I have hired one for occasional larger shows … see picture), but quite another to try and transport such a thing. I remember one time in Sydney it took 4 of us to get one on and off a tray-back ute. Exhausting stuff at the end of a huge show.
So I have a light-weight, old fashioned “push wheelchair” that I’ve modified and blinged. Well, in fact I have two. I travel so often to do shows in Sydney that I keep one down there also. You simply cannot imagine the looks I used to get dragging a wheelchair covered in blue satin & gold sequins through airports.
But! To the Mermaid and my reason for this article. And the ONE point that I felt the need to make (but pre-empted with 5 paragraphs of trivia).
Here it is …I get the occasional person tell me that they are “the biggest Bette fan in the world …” (they LOVE her, they really LOVE her) and go on to say “but why did you do that mermaid thing in the middle of a Bette tribute?”
I find it difficult to answer this question as something sarcastic is usually stuck in my throat, threatening to slip out and completely ruin the camaraderie of the post-gig ‘meet ‘n greet’. I rarely have to answer as others standing in the same room will usually step up on my behalf and good naturedly (or otherwise) question the person’s position as Bette’s biggest fan if they haven’t seen the mermaid.
My point? “I had no idea that she did that and I’m a huge Bette Midler fan,” Lady Gaga told Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush for “The Billy Bush Show” (this of course following GaGa’s “original idea” to perform as a mermaid in a wheelchair in Sydney recently).
I simply have nothing to add.
