This concert was performed in Cleveland, filmed expressly for Home Box Office, which ran the special on June 19, 1976, with an encore showing on June 21. The original HBO presentation was shown "complete and uncut, minus any editing or interruption" (per the June 1976 HBO On Air guide), lasting nearly two-and-a-half hours. When it was shown on broadcast television later that year, it was shorn to 87 minutes. That truncated version was released on videocassette by Embassy Home Video in 1984. As of 2017, the coveted special - a rare opportunity to see Midler in her first phase of stardom - has yet to be released in digital format.
The full-length HBO special was released as the Bette Midler album "Live at Last."
The original HBO version began with the following message about the special: "The show you are about to see is an exact record of what happened live, on stage, at the Cleveland Music Hall on the nights of February 6th and 7th, 1976. Scenes from both performances have been included. No laugh tracks or applause tracks have been added. Nothing has been overdubbed or altered in any way. This is the way it was."
The original HBO broadcast ran 45 minutes longer than the home video edition. After "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman," Bette jokes about Cleveland, sings Neil Young's "Birds," employs the aid of a stool to do an impression of Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure, and she pokes fun at Judith Exner's claim of sleeping with JFK. After "Hurry on Down," Bette talks about the sea and sings "Shiver Me Timbers." Following "Lullaby of Broadway," there is a 5-minute intermission (featuring a rapidly-depleting hourglass) and then The Harlettes open Act II singing "Roll Me Through the Rushes." "Delta Dawn" has an extended ending in which Bette and the Harlettes vamp. At the end of the Sophie Tucker joke-along, Bette heckles the crowd and sings "The Story of Nanette."