Flashback Video: Bette Midler’s emotional performance of “Friends” at 1991 AIDS Project L.A event

Forgot to include this emotional video in yesterday’s Bette Midler 70th birthday opus. The year was 1991 and the event was a benefit for AIDS Project L.A. The Divine Miss M performs a very emotional version of her song Friends at a time when so many had already died of the disease and life-saving drugs were still 4-5 years away.

It’s as if the song, one of her earliest hits, was written for the occasion – especially this verse:

I had some friends but they’re gone,
Somethin’ came and took them away.
And from the dusk ’til the dawn
Here is where I’ll stay.