Jay Clifford brings new music, classics to the Cat's Cradle

All photos by Kevin Norris

Singer-songwriter Jay Clifford brought his tour supporting his new album Silver Tomb for the Kingfisher to the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro Thursday night.

Clifford was accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Josh Kaler on guitar, pedal steel, banjo and more as well as a three piece string section, making the set lush and beautiful. While the tour is in support of the new album, they only played three songs from it, "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants," "Strange Inversion of Reasoning" and "Vale of Tears.

Clifford played a few songs from his former band Jump, Little Children, including the classics "Mexico" and "Cathedrals," but he's clearly moving further from the band, opting to play more songs from his debut solo release as well as his other project, Rosebud.

"Safekeeping" from Rosebud's 2001 album Vespers was a fantastic inclusion in the set and featured a magnificent string arrangement. On "Yesterday's Move," Kaler's distorted guitar and ripping solo made it almost feel that there was a full rock band on stage.

As the set came to a close, Clifford and the string section came down to the floor to perform "Cathedrals" with no amplification. After all these years, people still go nuts for the song, with one woman even letting out an excited yelp at the opening chords

After a brief break, Clifford returned for a single-song encore of "No God, No Country," an unexpected choice. While the show seemed fairly short, featuring just 15 songs, it was a solid evening of music, though it would have been nice to hear more from the new album.

Set list
Daylight
Changing of the Guards
Waltzing Past the Grave
Overkill
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Dim and the Dark
Dissolves
Safekeeping
Strange Inversion of Reasoning
Yesterday's Move
Vale of Tears
Know When to Walk Away
Mexico
Cathedrals
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No God, No Country