The legacy of "Be True to Your School"

[guitarfool2002]

You can read RS's reviews of Friends and Sunflower in volume 12 of Contemporary Literary Criticism (along with a whole bunch of contemporary reviews/critiques of the BBs, Beatles, Dylan, Led Zep, Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell -- unfortunately, CLC's interest in popular culture was not maintained in later volumes), which is available at archive.org (search under "Books"). But I don't believe I've ever seen its review of 20/20. Guitarfool2002 -- is it available online anywhere you're aware of?

I'm not sure about online sources William, but I have them in a collection of RS reviews published as a book called "The Rolling Stone Record Review", I think it came out in 71 or 72. It's a good read if you can find an old copy for sale online.

And I just opened it for the first time in awhile after your question, so after my diatribe about Jann Wenner I was surprised to see he had also done the review of Wild Honey (February 24 '68) and that's published in the book as well. It's actually a decent yet cautious review, compared to his earlier hit piece on the group a few months prior.

[JakeH]

Second, Wenner seemed to have an axe to grind against The Beach Boys or Brian in particular. He wrote with a bias against the band and Brian in that article, I know that piece too, which seemed more like click bait would look today. Pick a fight, get more readers and your advertisers are happy. I saw no reason in the context of that piece when it ran in RS to level such a base attack against the group except if Wenner were trying to be provocative and pick a fight to get more readers for his then-new magazine. It wouldn't be the only fight Wenner would pick, look at what he did with Chicago and how a band member's comment to him caused Wenner to try to keep them out of the R&R Hall Of Fame all these years. Add other bands to that list too, Wenner's hit list.

At that time, in '67-'68, The Beach Boys as a band in general had been making music for roughly 5 years. 5 years! Unless Wenner had a serious axe to grind with them beyond the norm, I still don't understand where that vitriol came from.

As far as not understanding the the source of vitriol, I think you've basically answered the question with your commentary on "click-bait"-type motivation. Though it was on a higher level than mere clickbait, it is similar in that the motivation has to do with the business of publishing and journalism and less to do with pure music criticism divorced from the need to get readers (today: 'views").   His criticism isn't really directed at Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys, but instead at what he saw as the then-prevailing consensus among the nascent rock 'n' roll critic community. It was an attack on the likes of - I'm guessing - Paul Williams, the New York Times (which described Smiley Smile as "holy" music, or something like that) and also of course Derek Taylor-originated P.R.   It's reasonable, I think, to assume that Jann Wenner wanted to interpose himself and Rolling Stone into the newly-forming, post-Monterey rock 'n' roll culture, to ensure that Rolling Stone would eventually become the preeminent arbiter of quality: Rolling Stone will tell the kids what's good and what's not good (which is basically the same as what the R 'n' R Hall of Fame does) After all, this is what Rolling Stone would become (at least for a while) for better or worse, and therefore it's reasonable to assume that this is what Wenner wanted to do from the beginning.  And he succeeded.  "Don't listen to Derek Taylor, the guy at Crawdaddy, or the New York Times, listen to Rolling Stone"  is what's going on.  Brian is collateral damage in this effort - "thrown under the bus" over the course of one page, as part of a larger effort to build Rolling Stone - which itself is part of the mainstreaming of rock culture and the counterculture.

So it is symbolically proper that the new voice of the new culture has as its first order of business the knocking of the Beach Boys, especially coming on the heels of Smiley Smile, which was undoubtedly a disappointment - a letdown after the precision and focus of  Pet Sounds and the huge success of "Good Vibrations." Smiley simply did not correlate with all the hype about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.  Guitarfool mentions Wenner's lack of "balls" - kind of true, as it really wasn't that brave to knock Brian and the Beach Boys at this point - they were already down, or at least Brian was.  Smiley sounded really bad, especially compared to Sgt. Pepper.  By the time of the Wenner piece, a bunch of factors had already come together to throw Brian under the bus, so Wenner was only saying it outright, in public. Anybody who might have read it would have already come to more-or-less the same conclusion about Brian.  The Steven Van Zandts of the era - what would somebody like that have thought if he had read Wenner's article? Probably would have nodded in agreeement. 

Wenner didn't know what really had gone on behind the scenes (let alone Brian's personal backstory); there's no way he could have known any of it.  One thing he was aware of, however, was that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were not indistinguishable from one another.  He couldn't have known about the true extent of the division between Brian and the group business, that in fact there were two different operations that had by then evolved to become directly opposed to one another: studio-craft vs. touring entertainment. Still, he was at least aware that Brian did not tour with the group, something I don't think the average fan was necessarily even aware of in those days. For a lot of people - even paying concert-goers, it was just a group of guys in striped shirts.  So Wenner makes a point of saying that Brian doesn't tour with them anymore. And his attack is therefore two-pronged: (1) Brian is not a genius and (2) The touring Beach Boys are not serious. This is what he wrote:

"In person, the Beach Boys are a totally disappointing group. [***] Brian Wilson does not tour with the group and in person they are nowhere near their records, especially with their surfing material. To please their fans, they do their own material, but they make fun of it. Their old material is fine and they should do it with the pride that they have evey reason to take, but instead they make fun of it on stage.  Any group with its head on straight wouldn't do material they didn't dig, but the Beach Boys are not far enough into their thing."

This part of the criticism is specifically aimed at the other Beach Boys, and not at Brian. (Wenner is in fact respectful of Brian's talent in the article - again, his objection is to the genius-hype, the mediocrity of Smiley Smile and the histrionics of Brian's acolytes in the critical community). He's a critic, his view is totally subjective and somebody else who saw the same show could have thought the same performance was transcendent.  But for Wenner, something was emanating from the Beach Boy stage that put him off. For him, it boils down to lack of seriousness and insincerity. I think he nailed it, whether we fans like it or not. 

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-beach-boys/2023/jacobs-pavilion-at-nautica-cleveland-oh-3a4698f.html

Whew, Mike's "WHEEEEEEEN" shtick is even worse than I thought. It's now the entire first set!

[guitarfool2002]

As far as not understanding the the source of vitriol, I think you've basically answered the question with your commentary on "click-bait"-type motivation. Though it was on a higher level than mere clickbait, it is similar in that the motivation has to do with the business of publishing and journalism and less to do with pure music criticism divorced from the need to get readers (today: 'views").   His criticism isn't really directed at Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys, but instead at what he saw as the then-prevailing consensus among the nascent rock 'n' roll critic community. It was an attack on the likes of - I'm guessing - Paul Williams, the New York Times (which described Smiley Smile as "holy" music, or something like that) and also of course Derek Taylor-originated P.R.   It's reasonable, I think, to assume that Jann Wenner wanted to interpose himself and Rolling Stone into the newly-forming, post-Monterey rock 'n' roll culture, to ensure that Rolling Stone would eventually become the preeminent arbiter of quality: Rolling Stone will tell the kids what's good and what's not good (which is basically the same as what the R 'n' R Hall of Fame does) After all, this is what Rolling Stone would become (at least for a while) for better or worse, and therefore it's reasonable to assume that this is what Wenner wanted to do from the beginning.  And he succeeded.  "Don't listen to Derek Taylor, the guy at Crawdaddy, or the New York Times, listen to Rolling Stone"  is what's going on.  Brian is collateral damage in this effort - "thrown under the bus" over the course of one page, as part of a larger effort to build Rolling Stone - which itself is part of the mainstreaming of rock culture and the counterculture.

So it is symbolically proper that the new voice of the new culture has as its first order of business the knocking of the Beach Boys, especially coming on the heels of Smiley Smile, which was undoubtedly a disappointment - a letdown after the precision and focus of  Pet Sounds and the huge success of "Good Vibrations." Smiley simply did not correlate with all the hype about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.  Guitarfool mentions Wenner's lack of "balls" - kind of true, as it really wasn't that brave to knock Brian and the Beach Boys at this point - they were already down, or at least Brian was.  Smiley sounded really bad, especially compared to Sgt. Pepper.  By the time of the Wenner piece, a bunch of factors had already come together to throw Brian under the bus, so Wenner was only saying it outright, in public. Anybody who might have read it would have already come to more-or-less the same conclusion about Brian.  The Steven Van Zandts of the era - what would somebody like that have thought if he had read Wenner's article? Probably would have nodded in agreeement.  

Wenner didn't know what really had gone on behind the scenes (let alone Brian's personal backstory); there's no way he could have known any of it.  One thing he was aware of, however, was that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were not indistinguishable from one another.  He couldn't have known about the true extent of the division between Brian and the group business, that in fact there were two different operations that had by then evolved to become directly opposed to one another: studio-craft vs. touring entertainment. Still, he was at least aware that Brian did not tour with the group, something I don't think the average fan was necessarily even aware of in those days. For a lot of people - even paying concert-goers, it was just a group of guys in striped shirts.  So Wenner makes a point of saying that Brian doesn't tour with them anymore. And his attack is therefore two-pronged: (1) Brian is not a genius and (2) The touring Beach Boys are not serious. This is what he wrote:

"In person, the Beach Boys are a totally disappointing group. [***] Brian Wilson does not tour with the group and in person they are nowhere near their records, especially with their surfing material. To please their fans, they do their own material, but they make fun of it. Their old material is fine and they should do it with the pride that they have evey reason to take, but instead they make fun of it on stage.  Any group with its head on straight wouldn't do material they didn't dig, but the Beach Boys are not far enough into their thing."

This part of the criticism is specifically aimed at the other Beach Boys, and not at Brian. (Wenner is in fact respectful of Brian's talent in the article - again, his objection is to the genius-hype, the mediocrity of Smiley Smile and the histrionics of Brian's acolytes in the critical community). He's a critic, his view is totally subjective and somebody else who saw the same show could have thought the same performance was transcendent.  But for Wenner, something was emanating from the Beach Boy stage that put him off. For him, it boils down to lack of seriousness and insincerity. I think he nailed it, whether we fans like it or not.  

I agree with some of your points but my issue with Wenner is that I felt his self-imagined role as arbiter versus critic and commentator (and editor above all other titles) went to his head, and he was suggesting that his opinions and attached biases were to be taken to heart by the readers. Yes I agree there were issues with the Beach Boys' live show from late '66 into '67, especially in the British press which we had a discussion about in the Smile thread about a year ago. But consider if his issue was The Beach Boys trying to "chase" The Beatles in '67, why wouldn't he then go after The Rolling Stones? The "bad boys" of rock and roll, the blues-driven ragtag dangerous rockers who ironically the same month Wenner penned his diatribe against the Beach Boys would release an album whose cover featured Mick dressed as a wizard with a ridiculous cone hat and the other band members dressed like actors at a Renaissance Faire where someone spiked the apple cider with bad acid. And the music was "everything but the kitchen sink" arranging and orchestration, which was clearly chasing The Beatles sound as of 1967. Or maybe Wenner did attack that project too, I'm not sure. But clearly after Sgt Pepper hit big, way too many bands and artists started chasing that vibe and sound, often with ridiculous results, yet Wenner goes after the Beach Boys and Brian who actually went the other direction, to the extreme of a "stripped down" sound, instead of trying to copy the Pepper sound and vibe. Brian already did that on Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations, and was doing that on the Smile sessions before Pepper was even a cohesive project. Then the Boys stripped down their sound before that too became a thing in the music business, with Big Pink, a decent chunk of the White Album, etc made it fashionable again. So Wenner suggesting this "chasing the Beatles" bit doesn't add up.

But the whole notion of going after The Beach Boys and Brian was really punching down, and I think it had more to do with Wenner's own failings as a music writer where his bias and/or need for "click bait" in pre-internet days outweighed his sense of giving readers a good product. Or maybe he was legitimately let down or upset by The Beach Boys, who knows. But whatever the case, his diatribe against them seemed to have more to do with him than the actual band, who admittedly was not in the best of shape at the time.

Wenner himself had and carried numerous biases that found their way into his writings and operation of his magazine, not the least of which was his love of John Lennon over Paul McCartney no matter what the quality was, and his bias toward Bay Area bands over LA bands, like a territorial thing where my home team is better than yours simply because I live here and you live there. I mean, seriously, in retrospect how much of that so called Bay Area music from roughly 67-70 still hold up today apart from the most obvious successes? Yet that was the scene being promoted sometimes very heavily by the hometown magazine of note. There was a palpable LA versus SF vibe running through those early years at RS magazine, sometimes more obvious than others.

In some ways maybe Wenner and others took the lyrics of "Be True To Your School" to heart, only instead of rival schools fighting it out it was rival regional music scenes! "When some loud braggart tries to put you down, and says his bands are great...".

I just don't think a critic can put himself into the mindset of any artist when they're being observed playing music and say with any confidence "this is what they're thinking when they're playing their music". I suppose chalk it up to youthful enthusiasm, need for ad revenue and click bait, or whatever, but Wenner had plenty of targets in late 1967 as well as a more diplomatic way of addressing the criticism than he did, whether we agree or not. And I seriously would have liked to see his reaction when that new Stones album crossed his desk in Dec. 1967 and he saw Jagger dressed as a wizard on the cover.

[Ian]

Yeah…it’s interesting that the Bay Area scene that RS hyped so much has declined in importance in music history while the stock of the “slick” LA groups like the BBs, Doors and Byrds has increased. Obviously in their day the Airplane were considered a big part of the counter-culture but that is also the problem-listening to the Airplane is listening to 1967 but Wild Honey has a more timeless quality. Personally I was never a Dead-head but those that are often say you had to be there-I think the dead was self indulgent with twenty minutes of guitar noodling-but the people that were taking LSD loved it-but if you are not on a trip does the music hold up? Not for me.

[JakeH]

But consider if his issue was The Beach Boys trying to "chase" The Beatles in '67, why wouldn't he then go after The Rolling Stones? The "bad boys" of rock and roll, the blues-driven ragtag dangerous rockers who ironically the same month Wenner penned his diatribe against the Beach Boys would release an album whose cover featured Mick dressed as a wizard with a ridiculous cone hat and the other band members dressed like actors at a Renaissance Faire where someone spiked the apple cider with bad acid.

Forgot about this... true. I think John Lennon called them out for this in his (in)famous 1970 interview with RS, and he specifically upbraids Wenner for missing this. Ha ha. (But no critics were calling the Rolling Stones "geniuses" in 1966-67.  This again points to the possibility that Wenner really was interested in taking down the opinions of other critics, rather than taking down the Beach Boys for sport.

Wenner himself had and carried numerous biases that found their way into his writings and operation of his magazine, not the least of which was his love of John Lennon over Paul McCartney no matter what the quality was, and his bias toward Bay Area bands over LA bands, like a territorial thing where my home team is better than yours simply because I live here and you live there.
 

Forgot about this too. True, this is always a thing, most of the animostity directed from north to south. 

Or maybe he was legitimately let down or upset by The Beach Boys, who knows. But whatever the case, his diatribe against them seemed to have more to do with him than the actual band, who admittedly was not in the best of shape at the time.

I once read a book dealing with student protests ("Free Speech") at the Univ. of California (aka Berkeley)  that started in Fall 1964. The book had nothing to do with music, but in setting the scene it mentioned some earlier forms of student activism that went back to the previous year - 1963.  Some students were involved in publishing an unofficial course guide that basically rated the professors - kind of akin to a "Rolling Stone consumer guide" but supposedly for students to decide what classes to take. Wenner was a freshman at Berkeley, and involved in this student organization. In this book I read, a guy who was involved in writing the course guide said Wenner would come into the meetings (this would be fall 1963, I'm guessing) with a surfboard and wearing "baggies." 

[All Summer Long]

I might not have the longest or most eloquent comments to post, as many of you have had before me. But I will say that I think guitarfool2002 (Craig) has pretty much nailed it. I could use more colorful language, but I won’t, partly because of board rules: Wenner was/is a tool.

Regarding the smoking, cutting class, rebellion culture cited as part of rock and roll: that may be true for some, but it definitely wasn’t true for all. After all, some of the biggest artists themselves were pretty clean-cut people before, during, and/or their time in the spotlight.

Regarding BTTYS itself, I think it’s a good song. It’s not their best song, but certainly not the worst either. I agree with school spirit being a thing of the pre-Kennedy times, and regardless of how people felt about their high schools, I believe many were still cheering their schools’ teams on. Definitely didn’t blow their career; in my opinion, that was Smiley Smile.

I don’t buy the idea that The Beach Boys or Brian in particular were insincere when writing and recording new material. They may have not respected it well enough on the stage most of the time in the ‘60s, but I don’t think the music itself comes off as insincere. You don’t have to be a surfer to be part of the culture, hang out with surfers, etc. in the ‘60s.

The idea of cool is also extremely overrated, but I think I’ve ranted enough for now.

EDIT: Fixed typo/possible autocorrect mistake.

[Ian]

I mean it was definitely a thought that was out of step with the times in the late 60s and early 70s. If my memory serves me it was not in the BBs set till the 1980s, when they also added the Jan and Dean Little Old Lady from Pasadena to the act and also resurrected their cheesy cover of Long Tall Texan

[CenturyDeprived]

I dig the album version but I've never cared for the single version. Way too much like a novelty track, and over the top like it's trying too hard. The album version has a simplicity paired with some interesting chord changes that make it flow better to my ears.

But lyric-wise it's definitely corny, and perhaps the most emblematic of their songs which screams "we are conventional conservatives and not rock 'n' roll rebels", or it would be perceived like that to some listeners. I suppose it seemed extremely dated within a year or two of its release.

But like I said, I still like it myself.

As soon as I saw this thread, I immediately had a glimpse of Brian Wilson talking about this song in the "beautiful dreamer" SMiLE documentary.

Go to 46:30, where he somewhat pejoratively throws Be True To Your School under the bus a little bit when comparing its conventionality to the avant-garde sounds of SMiLE.

https://youtu.be/0SriaRRcA6w

[guitarfool2002]

But consider if his issue was The Beach Boys trying to "chase" The Beatles in '67, why wouldn't he then go after The Rolling Stones? The "bad boys" of rock and roll, the blues-driven ragtag dangerous rockers who ironically the same month Wenner penned his diatribe against the Beach Boys would release an album whose cover featured Mick dressed as a wizard with a ridiculous cone hat and the other band members dressed like actors at a Renaissance Faire where someone spiked the apple cider with bad acid.

Forgot about this... true. I think John Lennon called them out for this in his (in)famous 1970 interview with RS, and he specifically upbraids Wenner for missing this. Ha ha. (But no critics were calling the Rolling Stones "geniuses" in 1966-67.  This again points to the possibility that Wenner really was interested in taking down the opinions of other critics, rather than taking down the Beach Boys for sport.

Wenner himself had and carried numerous biases that found their way into his writings and operation of his magazine, not the least of which was his love of John Lennon over Paul McCartney no matter what the quality was, and his bias toward Bay Area bands over LA bands, like a territorial thing where my home team is better than yours simply because I live here and you live there.
 

Forgot about this too. True, this is always a thing, most of the animostity directed from north to south. 

Or maybe he was legitimately let down or upset by The Beach Boys, who knows. But whatever the case, his diatribe against them seemed to have more to do with him than the actual band, who admittedly was not in the best of shape at the time.

I once read a book dealing with student protests ("Free Speech") at the Univ. of California (aka Berkeley)  that started in Fall 1964. The book had nothing to do with music, but in setting the scene it mentioned some earlier forms of student activism that went back to the previous year - 1963.  Some students were involved in publishing an unofficial course guide that basically rated the professors - kind of akin to a "Rolling Stone consumer guide" but supposedly for students to decide what classes to take. Wenner was a freshman at Berkeley, and involved in this student organization. In this book I read, a guy who was involved in writing the course guide said Wenner would come into the meetings (this would be fall 1963, I'm guessing) with a surfboard and wearing "baggies." 

Adding another interesting footnote to this, maybe someone can find the source (the Wenner bio? ), but I remember reading that before starting RS, Jann Wenner went to England in '66 and his calling card hoping to get published or hired or whatever was a review he had written on Pet Sounds. It just makes what he said and wrote about the BB's a year later in '67 a little more confusing. And I don't know if that particular review he took to the UK has ever been published, because I think the UK magazines passed on it but seeing their offices apparently inspired him to start RS on his own. I wonder if it's available somewhere.

[guitarfool2002]

I might not have the longest or most eloquent comments to post, as many of you have had before me. But I will say that I think guitarfool2002 (Craig) has pretty much nailed it. I could use more colorful language, but I won’t, partly because of board rules: Wenner was/is a tool.

Regarding the smoking, cutting class, rebellion culture cited as part of rock and roll: that may be true for some, but it definitely wasn’t true for all. After all, some of the biggest artists themselves were pretty clean-cut people before, during, and/or their time in the spotlight.

Regarding BTTYS itself, I think it’s a good song. It’s not their best song, but certainly not the worst either. I agree with school spirit being a thing of the pre-Kennedy times, and regardless of how people felt about their high schools, I believe many were still cheering their schools’ teams on. Definitely didn’t blow their career; in my opinion, that was Smiley Smile.

I don’t buy the idea that The Beach Boys or Brian in particular were insincere when writing and recording new material. They may have not respected it well enough on the stage most of the time in the ‘60s, but I don’t think the music itself comes off as insincere. You don’t have to be a surfer to be part of the culture, hang out with surfers, etc. in the ‘60s.

The idea of cool is also extremely overrated, but I think I’ve ranted enough for now.

EDIT: Fixed typo/possible autocorrect mistake.

Eddie Cochran comes to mind. I think so many kids especially in the UK had that image of him as the ultimate rock and roller, the rebel rocker who fit that mold. But in reality Eddie was by most accounts a clean cut guy who was pretty straight laced and happened to be a terrific musician, I could be wrong but I don't think he ever drew a switchblade in a rumble, let alone carried one. But I think those kids hearing his music and seeing the photos of him may have attached that image to him which is totally out of the artist's control. Now Gene Vincent and Link Wray were another story 

I think your comments about sincerity in the BB's music, specifically the surfing element, is pretty spot on. And I think how they sang about surfing and surfer culture, and the hot rod culture too, was part of the appeal that became universal. They were celebrating the culture and inviting others to join. If you were a kid in landlocked midwest America in 1963, or suffering through a cold northeast US winter, and you heard kids singing about surfing and sun and California beaches, that's powerful imagery to put into a listener's mind. I don't think it's exaggerated when many have talked about Brian's music and the band creating the "California Myth" in the 60's through their songs. I remember a great series of vignettes in the show Mad Men, an earlier season, when Don Draper goes to California to meet someone he was connected to through a death in Korea (no spoilers if you haven't seen it...), and as he's walking around it looks like the scenery described in multiple Beach Boys songs. Young guys working on hot rods, the sun, the beach, the whole deal. It was a pretty unique culture very well described by Timothy White in his book where a lot of factors came together to create this scene in the late 50's and early 60's, and The Beach Boys just happened to sing and write about it and share it with the world. They didn't have to be a direct participant in order to write and sing about it any more than a Life or Look magazine writer would actually have to be a surfer in order to write an article about it.

There is a great review of the song Surfin USA from roughly 35 or 40 years ago where the writer mentions the misheard opening lyric. He heard, and I did too originally, "If everybody had a NOTION" rather than "ocean", and suggests how powerful that made the song because anyone could join in, in their own imaginations or just by having the notion to go surfing and doing it real or imagined, simply through listening to the music. And even the correct line, "if everybody had an ocean", takes on some of the same weight although not as powerful in the literary sense. But the point is these kids in California were saying to people who would never be able to surf or were nowhere near an ocean with suitable waves that they too can enjoy it just by listening and imagining.

That concept always stuck with me, and if you apply similar ideas to the surfing and hot rod songs, it adds another layer of meaning to their work. I think people who understood that were able to enjoy the music that much more than those who thought the Beach Boys themselves weren't real surfers so therefore it's insincere music. I never understood that.

[SMiLE Brian]

I have to admit I had a moment where I let my myself go and enjoy the song for what it
was, a moment in time….   

[Ian]

I have a few Brian interviews from 1966-1967 where he somewhat self disparagingly states that The Beach Boys ‘are basically squares’. I think Brian was a guy-like Bruce J-with a foot in the 50s and a foot in the 60s. He loved all those beautifully sung but corny songs like Graduation Day and Things we did last summer and lyrically Be True fits in with that vibe.  And Brian actually did have fondness for HS and football and cheerleaders and all that. In the autumn of 68 when the BBs played in Anaheim, Brian spent the entire show discussing Hawthorne HS sports with a fellow alum rather than watching the show.

[Pretty Funky]

Some great posts but mine is very simplistic.
It’s a staple of the live set and ticks one of the heyday boxes….School. I remember back in 2012 it got backsides off seats and the band watched the big screen each night for the additional pictures that appealed to local audiences, even the show I attended in Australia.

A great example here. https://youtu.be/dA2yKra9f5g

What’s not to like? 👍