THE SUNDAYS – INDIE DARLINGS THAT DISAPPEARED

Dickie Felton | 4 December 2022

Late night Christmas Eve 1990 my friend Colin left a Kwik Save bag on my doorstep.

Inside was a fossil just like the ones on the cover of The Sundays’ ‘Reading, Writing and Arithmetic’ album.

Thirty-three years ago The Sundays’ dreamy melancholic indie pop took my bedroom and the world by storm.

Harriet Wheeler‘s distinctive and beautiful vocals had me transfixed.

When The Sundays embarked on their first headline tour me and Colin were there.

February 9 1990 is date forever etched in my mind as we watched The Sundays at Manchester University. The support act was pretty amazing too – Galaxie 500.

I was 16 and it was only the second gig I had ever been to (the first was The Beautiful South at Liverpool Royal Court a few months earlier).

The Sundays’ debut long player ‘Reading, Writing and Arithmetic’ shifted half a million copies around the globe. I got the black vinyl while Colin got the picture disc.

Album track ‘Here’s Where The Story Ends’ was played endlessly in America on MTV (and was also covered by Tin Tin Out in 1998 making the British top ten).

Wheeler was suddenly on the covers of NME and Vox in her black tee and black docs looking like an indie goddess.

She described their shows in Japan as being “like Beatlemania“.

That night at Manchester University me and Colin couldn’t have been closer to The Sundays.

We were first into the venue and leaned on the stage dead centre.

Wheeler and genius guitarist Dave Gavurin were within touching distance.

The music they played that night was mesmerising. The 500 fans present realised they were witnessing something quite amazing.

Looking back, that night means more to me than just music.

I definitely saw my future there and then. This was it. Me, music, bands, sweaty concert halls…

A second album ‘Blind’ was released in 1992 and was another huge hit. But a subsequent sold-out US tour was cut short due to homesickness. It would be half a decade before their next album release.

‘Static and Silence’ with its glorious single ‘Summertime’ was another hit in the UK and American indie charts.

They also recorded an utterly fabulous cover of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Wild Horses’ but Wheeler and Gavurin (a couple) had other more major projects to work on: a family.

And then that was it.

Gone.

They just disappeared from music.

Seven years ago Adam Pitluk, editor of American Airlines’ in-flight magazine, secured a most unexpected interview where Wheeler and Gavurin revealed, that after an absence of two decades, they were writing music again.

But almost eight years since Adam’s investigations, The Sundays remain as elusive as ever.

Recently someone papped what looks like Harriet Wheeler doing her shopping in a supermarket.

It’s a far cry from the cover of Vox.

Harriet should be able to go about Aldi aisles in peace.

And we should just accept The Sundays’ nine year existence for what it was – a glorious three album era.

Bands are human beings despite us fans propelling them to God-like status.

They should be allowed to disappear. We don’t own them. There’s something quite rock n roll about vanishing into thin air.

It’s coming up to Christmas and I wish I’d kept Colin’s fossil.

I also hope The Sundays might reappear one day. But only if they want to.