Growing up in a working-class Scottish town, brothers Jim and William Reid despised the music so much that they decided to do something about it.
Investing in some amps and guitars, the Reids formed the Jesus and Mary Chain, a band that took their love of the Beach Boys and the Velvet Underground to its logical extreme. The Jesus and Mary Chain combined the sunny melodies of the former with the gloomy subject matter of the latter, but then coated it all with so much feedback the chord changes were often indiscernible.
For the brothers Reid, who performed at the Metro Friday night, white noise was an affront to conformity as well as an ingenious way to disguise the sheer ineptitude of their musicianship. Who needed solos when an ear-shattering squall would do?
The legions of fans that continue to worship the group’s auspicious 1985 debut “Psychocandy” would tend to agree, and subsequent Jesus and Mary Chain albums can best be differentiated in terms of volume and distortion rather than songwriting. The Reids perfected their formula early on and have yet to deviate.
While the band’s recorded output has been remarkably consistent, when it performs live, the group is notoriously erratic. Early Jesus and Mary Chain shows were infamous for their propensity to incite riots, but not because the Reids were particularly confrontational. Rather, the band would frequently show up late to gigs and drunk to the point of indifference.
There were no riots at Metro but the state of things on stage was less than stable.
False starts marred many songs, including the otherwise grand “Head On,” and the band didn’t seem to have much interest in entertaining those who braved the prospect of post-Bulls chaos to fill the venue.
Jim Reid hid behind the microphone stand, spilling beer and half-heartedly swinging a tambourine, while the three-piece band that supported the brothers struggled to keep it all together.
“I love rock ‘n’ roll,” sang Jim, his bored stage demeanor milking every ounce of irony from the atypically positive song of the same name.
His brother, William, drink in hand, appeared more comfortable with that song’s evil twin, the deliciously bitter “I Hate Rock ‘n’ Roll.” The two songs bookend the Jesus and Mary Chain’s new album “Munki,” the band’s first in four years, and the love/hate relationship seems to be tearing the group apart.
What the band lacked in enthusiasm they made up for in volume. When in doubt, decibels are enough to recapture the spirit of punk rock. This night, the guitars were turned up loud enough to blow out Brian Wilson’s good ear, yet masochistic audience members called out for more.
Additionally, the sight of the pale, sullen pair playing semi-surf music is still a nifty novelty; after all, neither Reid looks like he has ever set foot near the ocean, and the passive vocal delivery disguises any fun the songs might hold in a veil of affected ennui.
But as the quintet rambled through a sloppy, desperate version of “Reverence,” it became clear that any tenuous appeal the band once held in the live setting had finally, and fatally, faded away.
