People always travel considerable distances to Mostly Autumn’s York gigs, and Cloud Atlas took advantage of many fans making a weekend of it to put on a gig of their own the following night at The Post Office Social Club, and they succeeded in pulling a respectable sized crowd containing a lot of familiar faces.

Sadly the advertised support, one-time Seahorse Chris Helme, had to pull out as short notice, but former Stolen Earth guitarist Adam Dawson was able to step into the breach as a late replacement. He played a mixture of originals and covers, ending with Stolen Earth’s “Mirror, Mirror” and “Silver Skies”, and finally the never recorded “Harlequin” recorded as a duet with Heidi Widdop.

Stolen Earth themselves began with an extended drone of keys, whistles and E-bowed guitar before launching into the distinctive riff of “Searchlight”. The proceeded to deliver one of the best performances I’ve seen them do, helped by an excellent sound mix. Dave Randall on keys was particularly impressive with swirling colours and textures, as was bassist Stu Carver; the band have a very tight rhythm section.

Set-wise it was much the same as at Bilston in August, drawn from the album “Beyond the Vale” plus Heidi’s solo acoustic cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and the Stolen Earth oldie “Soul in a Jar”. One change was a rearrangement of the middle section of “Let the Blood Flow” with an electronica element that worked far better than the original. This time the band remembered to save one song for the encore, ending the evening with the epic “Stars”.

Cloud Atlas have one more gig scheduled this year, supporting Lifesigns at York’s Fibbers, after which they will be working on their second album.