Photo Blog: Sojourn Music’s “Over The Grave” Release Party, from the lens of Ryan Harvey

If you follow me on twitter.com/bobbygilles or facebook.com/bobbygilles, you read my thoughts on what a fantastic time we had at last night’s Over The Grave release party.  Southeast Christian Church hosted our event at their brand new building, The Block.  The building is a marvel, and the auditorium itself is one of the best in the city.

Sojourners and lots of others packed the building out and created a great vibe.  It was cool to meet some of our blog readers for the first time and to visit with old friends as well, including a contigent of our friends from The Oaks Community Church in Middleton, Ohio, lead by worship director Kyle Jamison.

Below you’ll find Ryan Harvey’s photos of the event.  Ryan is also a drummer, and played with the second of three bands last night — the band led by Pastor Mike Cosper.  You can see photos by Chuck Heeke from that part of the evening, and photos of the gathering crowd, at our sister site, travelblog.sojournchurch.com. And now here are Ryan’s photos, featuring the band led by Jamie Barnes and the band led by Neil Robins, who produced Over The Grave: The Hymns Of Isaac Watts, Volume One:
The entire Jamie Barnes band, left to right: Christi Osterday, Bryon Shrock, Matt Harris, Jamie Barnes, Rebecca Dennison, Katie Vaughn and David Weir.

The band did Jamie’s original material, including songs based on Sojourn’s current Old Testament sermon series and Jamie’s “collaboration” with Isaac Watts, “Absent From Flesh.” That song will be featured on volume two of our Isaac Watts project.

They also led us in the classic hymn “It Is Well With My Soul” and the gospel standard “Go Down, Moses.”

The Neil Robins band closed out the night with songs from Over The Grave. Left to right: Joel Gerdis, Brian Meurer (hiding behind Joel Gerdis. Bryan played bass), Alex O’Nan, Kate Robins, Neil Robins and Daniel LaChance.

The energy was incredible.

Our musicians have played many venues with many bands, and have recorded various projects. They could play virtually anywhere, but they choose to use their talents to lead God’s people in songs of worship.

Neil breaks out a guitar solo. There is no telling how many hours he put into producing, playing, singing and writing songs for this album.

I’ve never heard Kate sound as good as she did this night, which is saying a lot. After completing our Isaac Watts songs, she closed out the night with a rendition of “I Have To Believe” by Rita Springer.

I have to add that I was personally touched at the end of the last intermission when Pastor Mike gave Neil and myself each a very old (1822) copy of an Isaac Watts hymnal, “The Psalms Of David, Imitated In The Language Of The New Testament And Applied To The Christian State And Worship.”  I couldn’t think of a better memento to commemorate our work on this project, and the kinship we felt with Dr. Watts as we tried to contextualize his lyrics for our own time and place.