When introducing the band members of Swansea Sound during their short opening set at Philly’s Johnny Brenda’s, Hue Williams gave credit to “Dr. Amelia Fletcher” as an “Alien Of Extraordinary Ability” and credited her with giving the rest of them, who hail from Wales and England, the opportunity to get their visas. Fletcher, laughed and demurred, waving the comment away by claiming that’s just a function of paperwork procedural terminology.
But the label fits: Dr. Fletcher is a distinguished economist who held high-ranking government positions and professorships in the U.K. during the first decades of this century. She’s also used her extraordinary ability as songwriter, guitarist and vocalist in numerous bands, from Talulah Gosh in the late 1980s to the much-loved Heavenly in the ’90s, which morphed, after the death of their drummer and Fletcher’s brother, into Marine Research and Tender Trap. More recently, she and her husband and constant bandmate Rob Pursey, have been in the Catenary Wires and Swansea Sound. They also run their own label, Skep Wax, which has released albums from Swansea Sound, Lightheaded, Jeanines, the Cords and, now, a Heavenly reboot, with Ian Button taking Mathew Fletcher’s place as drummer.
To the best of the band’s knowledge, and the crowd’s, Heavenly had never played in Philly, although Marine Research and Swansea Sound had, and the show sold out quickly to a multi-generational audience. (Evidently, a few Heavenly songs have gotten some TikTok traction.) The triple bill was a mini Skep Wax festival and a mini celebration of Amelia Fletcher’s extraordinary abilities, although she would certainly object to being lionized in such a way.
Swansea Sound songs, written by Pursey, are full of inside jokes, acerbic references to the machinery of rock ’n’ roll and meta-commentary about the band itself; they follow the tradition of Williams’ former band, the Pooh Sticks. The band, which also includes Button on drums and former Dentists guitarist Bob Collins, opened with “Oasis V. Blur,” which cheekily asks if either lad band could be the best choice “if you’re a girl.” Fletcher provided the sweet-voiced counterpoint to Williams’ declamations on rave-up political rant “Toxic Energy” and in the affectionate “Far Far Away,” a tribute to Pete Shelley and an overt acknowledgement of the band’s debt to the Buzzcocks (with a dose of glam rock).
Swansea Sound is working on its third album (which Williams quipped “no one is asking for”), and the set included mostly new songs, including “I Didn’t Mean To Be Mean,” set as a dialogue between a Melody Maker music journalist (sung by Williams) trying to apologize for a negative review to Amelia Fletcher (sung by Fletcher). The set was a joyful blur: zippy songs, funny banter, biting irony and witty brevity.
New Jersey’s Lightheaded is part of a new generation of descendants of Heavenly’s indie pop, although the band also seems well-versed in American baroque folk of the ’60s (Linda Perhacs, Margot Guryan) and British DIY indie pop of the ’80s (Dolly Mixture, Marine Girls). With the high unison vocals of Cynthia Rittenbach and Sara Abdelbarry and the chiming guitar of Stephen Stec, the members of Lightheaded came across as nostalgic historians without being constrained by their sources.
Like Swansea Sounds, Lightheaded played a bunch of songs the band has been working on since last year’s very good Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming (a joint release from Skep Wax and the simpatico Slumberland label), and Rittenbach, Abdelbarry and Co. shared their own bits of meta-pop with a fantastic update of early song “Rock And Roll Show” and a chipper version of Thinking Dreaming, Scheming’s “Me And Amelia Fletcher,” which was an homage, a love letter and an insider’s joke.
Heavenly’s set was split between songs from the unexpectedly vital new release, Highway To Heavenly, and much-loved classics from its “twee as fuck” ’90s albums. Fletcher is 60 now, and her voice lacks some—but not all—of its former girlish insouciance, but she is still a master of sounding joyful and sweet even when she’s singing about harsh realities of sexual assault or geopolitical strife. And her back-and-forth vocals with Cathy Rogers—who also plays keyboards—were as charming and witty as ever.
If you think “twee” means “cute and child-like,” it doesn’t fit Heavenly, especially with Fletcher and fellow guitarist Peter Momtchilof’s penchant for buzzsaw guitar riffs. Fletcher pushed back against the old “twee” genre label too by saying the only really twee moment in Heavenly’s catalog was in the video for 1996 single “Trophy Girlfriend,” when she was lip-synching while bicycling and she raised her arm to signal a right turn: something Sid Vicious would never have done, she said.
Heavenly songs are dense with hooks and barbed lyrics, and the crowd was predictably thrilled to hear other old classics like “Hearts And Crosses” (one of the best-ever examples of the power of couching horrific subject matter in a candy-coated, joyful arrangement) and “Sperm Meets Egg, So What?” (which Fletcher dedicated to “anyone who has a parent,” adding wryly, “we like to be inclusive in Heavenly”). “Atta Girl,” one of several songs from the band’s debut Sarah Records EP from 1993, was especially rousing in an extended riff-happy version in the encore.
But many of the new songs were highlights, too, including the punkish “Portland Town,” the crash-pop “Excuse Me” and the girl group-like “Scene Stealing.” Highway To Heavenly is an extension of the band’s youthful catalog; it’s an update, rather than a re-creation, and Dr. Fletcher and her bandmates are too smart and too engaged in the world to pretend they’re the same as they were in the ’90s.
Heavenly did its part in making the triple-bill full of songs that celebrate music and bands and the indie-rock tribe. The evening’s meta-songs kept coming, from the old “Our Love Is Heavenly” early in the set to the new “Skep Wax” (which Fletcher introduced as a love song to music and to their record label) to the final encore of “C Is The Heavenly Option,” with Williams joining the band—and most of his Swansea Sound bandmates—for the declamatory role originally performed by Beat Happening’s Calvin Johnson. It was fantastic, and the whole evening was heavenly.
—Steve Klinge; photos by Chris Sikich
