Recap The Vaselines at Metro

It’s easy to see why Kurt Cobain idealized Scotland’s lively pop ensemble The Vaselines—this perky band, a few of whose songs were covered on Nirvana’s Incesticide, is instantly likeable. Whether frontmen and founders Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee are charming the audience with their teasing banter or crooning the band’s timelessly endearing music, hearing them sweetly sing their sometimes morbid alterna-pop proved undeniably sugarcoated.

It's been 20 years of relative silence since the release of the band’s sole album, Dum-Dum, and its new compilation, Enter The Vaselines, but McKee and Kelly played with such synchronicity that it seemed like they spent every second of their time apart practicing. Even their cover of Divine’s “You Think You’re A Man” had the tight precision of a Vaselines original. The audience’s obvious excitement at the band’s overdue reunion brightly contrasted the dark and sometimes cavernous feel of the Metro on Saturday.

What was most striking about The Vaselines' set was how it reclaimed songs made more popular by Nirvana's covers. Backed by Stevie Jackson and Bobby Kildea of the equally peppy Scottish-pop group Belle And Sebastian, McKee and Kelly used their playful flirtation to lend an air of adolescent glee; perpetually smiling across the stage at Kelly, McKee managed to make the chorus sound significantly more optimistic than Cobain’s tortured refrain. Similarly, the Kelly-fronted version of “Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam” lacked the funeral dirge element injected by Nirvana in its MTV Unplugged performance. The Vaselines' version, thanks to Kelly’s smooth voice and playful demeanor, softened the song's tone, even while the lyrics “Don’t expect me to die for thee” rang clear.

Other songs were just as crowd pleasing—and elicited just as many smiles from McKee and Kelly—including some newbies and a playlist of their older stuff. Even though it was clear the Nirvana-borrowed tunes were the biggest hits, McKee and Kelly seemed at ease in their unexpected and Nirvana-lent fame. “It’s taken us a long time to tour the album,” laughed McKee, pointing her smiling gaze on Kelly. “About 20 years.” Based on the turnout, it was clear people would've happily waited another two more decades.