Vineyard Music Discography
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Vineyard CafeVineyard Cafe captures a live, unplugged, intimate worship experience in a relaxed cafe atmosphere
by Donn Edwards
“With unique unplugged arrangements of both familiar as well as new, never-before-recorded songs, this series presents a cohesive live worship set unlike any other Vineyard recording.” — VMG Product Catalogue.
I don’t want to sound critical, but this description of the Vineyard Cafe series never really caught my imagination. I always thought that the series “fell a bit flat” because the recordings weren’t ‘live’ enough: no clinking of cups or bustle of a real coffee shop. Now I realise why: when these guys started playing, everything else stopped. So the problem wasn’t the recording at all!
Imagine, for a moment, that you are on holiday. You’ve just been for a walk along the beach, and you find a restaurant overlooking the sea, filled with beautiful, sun-tanned people, eating their meal and enjoying life. But there’s only one problem: the music. It’s boring! You give thanks for the food and you realise why its boring. Your heart wants to sing and worship the Lord for such a wonderful day, and all the restaurant can manage is cheesy secular music, which is happy on the surface but has about as much depth as a slice of toast.
Now imagine the same scene, but with one change. Instead of cheesy secular music, there is a small bandstand with enough space for a handful of musicians: keyboards, bass guitar, percussion, and a few voices. No one has ever heard of these guys before, so their names aren’t even advertised. You order your meal and enjoy the atmosphere. Just as the coffee arrives you wonder what happened to the music. Then you see the musicians arrive and start playing.
At the end of the second song the silence is so poignant you could hear a pin drop. Everyone is captivated by the honesty and intimacy of the songs, and the presence of the Holy Spirit has filled the room like the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Now you have Vineyard Cafe: the wonderful aroma of worship, without the trimmings or regalia of a Sunday morning, played straight from the heart with passion and simplicity.
During “Sing and Dance” you get up to go for a walk, partly because if you have to keep still another minute longer you’ll go crazy. On the way back you glance through the door to the kitchen, and notice one or two kitchen staff dancing to the music with unselfconscious abandon. You smile, wishing you could join them and express the way you really feel. You secretly wish you could dance that well. Later on, during “The River is Here” you can’t stand it any longer, and get up from you chair and dance near the back somewhere.
After an hour of pure, unceremonial worship you don’t want to go home. Eventually you pay for your meal and leave with a new appreciation of the goodness of the Lord. What a wonderful end to a glorious day.
Mercy at the Fairground (Producer's Notes).Shelter reviewed by Bob Rouse. Copyright © 1997, 1998 Vineyard Music Group.
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Information on this page last updated 04/04/1999 All information provided on this page is copyright
© 1996-2012 Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship.
If you spot any errors, inaccuracies or other bloopers, please send an e-mail to Donn
Edwards
at v...@s...p.net. Do not use this email address for any marketing purposes.
Vineyard Music EXTRA!, the ‘fanzine’ of Vineyard praise and worship music, is
independently produced. Also, please visit the Vineyard Music™ web site in the USA at http://www.vineyardmusic.com/
