BERTHA: Grateful Drag
About This Event
Bertha brings its "Grateful Drag" project to Brooklyn Bowl, framing classic-rock reference points through a drag-forward performance that treats the lineage of "Bertha Lou" as usable material rather than mere trivia. The rock/pop group's sets favor tight ensemble playing and clear song structures over spectacle, folding that midcentury rockabilly lineage into their onstage approach.
About Grateful Drag
“Grateful Drag” lands at Brooklyn Bowl as Bertha threads rock and pop through a drag-forward performance frame. The title nods to “Bertha Lou,” a 1957 rockabilly number written by Johnny Burnette and John Marascalco and recorded by artists including Johnny Faire, Dorsey Burnette, and Clint Miller, placing the show in a lineage of American song history rather than parody. In New York City, it reads as part of an ongoing downtown tradition: drag as a working method for live music, not a separate category. The result is a set that treats citation as structure, and identity as arrangement.
About the Artist
Bertha
Bertha is a rock/pop group heard in New York City rooms like Brooklyn Bowl, where they present “BERTHA: Grateful Drag.” The name nods to “Bertha Lou,” a 1950s rockabilly tune that moved through multiple recordings and later rewrites, and the project treats that lineage as usable material rather than trivia.