The Indelicates deserve better than what Philadelphia gave them on October 17, 2011. Granted, it was a Monday and granted, they are a relatively unknown band in the U.S., touring with no label support, but still, the Brighton-based duo is so unbelievably iconic, intelligent and charismatic that, prior to the show, I couldn’t help but allow myself to hope that all these Indelicates nerds would appear out of nowhere at the Tritone and go crazy over their set. This did not happen.

Here are some other things that did not happen:

The show was not promoted.

The sound guy did not show up.

The door guy barely collected the cover from people. (I had to find him and give him my $5, which kind of turns the whole political economy of live music on its head, if you think about it).

Oh well, maybe next time. I can’t help but think of the reception that British indie bands like Cometgain and the Yummy Fur have received in Philly in the last few years, at venues like Kung Fu Necktie or Johnny Brendas, with promoters like R5, and support like the England Belongs to Twee Djs, and how well that would have worked for the Indelicates. Oh well, again, maybe next time.

So who are the Indelicates? Primarily, they are Julia Indelicate, a refugee from the indie girl group experiment the Pipettes, and Simon Indelicate, who was apparently some sort of performance artist before this whole shambling experiment got underway. Both are accomplished songwriters and accomplished essayists, If I remember I’ll tack links to some of their writing at the end of this.

When they started they would describe their music as “stadium hate rock” and I think that’s a fitting description. Their earliest songs - “We Hate the Kids” and “Waiting for Pete Doherty to Die” combine biting cultural observation with soaring melodies and chord progressions and arrangements drawn far more from Journey than the Pastels.

That was their first few EPs and first album anyway, since then they’ve increasingly taken cues from Kurt Weill and, on their latest album, a rock opera about David Koresh (yes, you read that correctly), a bit of American roots music. Throughout their three albums, however, they have been unfashionably bombastic and direct. And it works. Oh my god it fucking works.

Their politics are as iconoclastic as their music. It’s difficult to nail down, but I’d describe it as a bracing mix of second wave feminism (see “Our Daughters Will Never be Free”) and Hitchens-y progressive rationalism (see “Better to Know” and “Be Afraid of Your Parents”). You don’t have to agree with everything they put out there to admire them for articulating their views so directly and with such little desire for the acceptance of their peers. One of the many contrarian views they affect is a very un-ironic love for the United States (see “America”), one which I suspect must make for awkward moments when they play in Germany (which they do a lot) and confusing moments when they play here (which hopefully they will do more). If a British person comes up to us and starts talking to us about how much they like the US, they must be secretly messing with us, right? Contempt for the music industry is another common theme. Kind of low hanging fruit if you ask me, but hey, they express it well.

So the Indelicates don’t have a label anymore (they used to be on Weekender, which went into receivership not too long ago), as far as I can tell they didn’t have a booking agent for this tour, and they don’t have a manager. I suspect what they do have is friendships with bands that are more famous than them, and a list of US contacts inherited from them, kind of the band equivalent of getting hand-me-down clothing from an older sibling. The upshot of this, on Monday, October 17, 2011 in Philadelphia, was that they played a sparsely attended show at Tritone, founded by the late great Rick D, which has unfortunately become one of Philly’s live music venues of last resort. They played with another touring band. I can’t tell you anything about them except that they had a lot of merchandise and spent the entire Indelicates’ set at a table by the jukebox, talking loudly enough to compete with music. Seriously, other touring band, I hate you. I hope your van breaks down in hell.

The Indelicates cheerfully agreed to play first, set up the PA themselves and did their own sound. (Based on previous experiences with Tritone, I can say that the lack of a soundguy may have actually been a blessing, but still…) Although most of their recordings feature a full band, they are doing this tour as a duo, for logistical and economic reasons, I’m sure. It’s a pity in a way - rock anthems kind of require drums - but they clearly do this a lot and are clearly very good at it. So Julia played a full-size electric piano and Simon played one of the weirdest acoustic/electrics I’ve ever seen - a thin black cutaway that looked like it would break if you breathed on it. Looks can be deceiving, I guess, because he pounded on it throughout the set and it was fine. He barely had to tune.

They pretty much switched off throughout the set between Julia songs and Simon songs. This is one of those rare bands where having multiple songwriters actually works, I suspect in this case because they are so in each other’s heads that they end up influencing each other’s writing quite a bit, but who knows. They riffed off of each other easily and naturally between songs, each with their own stage persona: Julia plays it formal and slightly worried, Simon shambolic and affable. They didn’t seem bothered that there were maybe 25 people in the whole place, a maximum of five of whom had actually come to see them and were paying attention.

They played a decent cross section of the three albums, including “America,” “Our Daughters Will Never Be Free,” “Jerusalem” (a personal favorite), and a couple of songs from the Koresh album. And they closed with the wonderful “Waiting for Pete Doherty to Die,” an acerbic send-up of blogosphere rock criticism which ought to be much more famous than it is. 

There is so much more to say about the Indelicates, and I hope to have the opportunity to say it someday soon, when they play a better show in Philly. Seriously Philly, we have to do better. I moved back here in 2008, thinking it was only going to be a few months. It’s turned into three-plus years, for reasons I couldn’t be happier about, granted, but if the Indelicates show reminded me of anything, it’s that we have to do better at making this town a better destination for visionary bands.