Global Courant 2023-05-18 20:00:43
The first US tour by an international rock band is a moment to be celebrated, a sign that years of hard work have paid off. But just a few days after their US debut, the members of Forests, an emo rock band from Singapore, underwent another rite of passage for some musicians traveling across the United States when they stopped for the night at a California hotel.
When they returned to their rental van a few hours later, they realized they had been robbed.
“In Singapore, I was joking about it like, oh, you know, your band is only legit if your stuff is stolen,” said Darell Laser, 36, the bass player. “Then it really happened.”
Forests and the Oklahoma band they were touring with, Ben Quad, did hardly the first musicians robbed while on tour in America. (In 1999, Sonic Youth famous lost the equipment of an entire truck to a thief, also in California.) But the experience was still a shock to a band from a country as safe as Singapore.
“It was the worst luck ever,” said Chris Martinez, 29, a Forests fan from San Diego who discovered the band years ago on a business trip to Singapore.
The robbery sparked a wave of concern among fans of both bands, and more than $9,000 in donations enabled them to purchase replacement instruments. They didn’t miss a show and closed their tour on Tuesday in good spirits with a sold-out concert in a bar in Queens.
“They seem to have passed it by,” said Mr. Martinez, who donated $200 to the bands crowdfunding campaign after learning of the robbery. “Keep a positive attitude and try not to let them get you down.”
The May 1 robbery set off a surreal first leg of a cross-country tour — titled “Get in losers, we’re going to Walmart” — that Forests had spent months planning and looking forward to for years. It happened a few days after their Seattle tour started and a few hours after their Oakland show.
When the two bands’ tired musicians stumbled into a Hampton Inn in Hayward, California around 1:30 a.m., they left their belongings in the 15-passenger rental van they shared for the tour. As a precaution, they parked next to a security camera, but that didn’t help: When they returned to the parking lot after 11 a.m., they found that some of their guitars, a bass, pedals, clothing, and a box of cash from merchandise sales had been stolen.
The theft was the latest in an area of California where property crimes such as shoplifting and car burglaries are on the rise. The hotel management told the bands that the security footage showed no theft. A location tag on an instrument appeared to indicate that the stolen items had been taken to an Oakland apartment building, but police said there was no easy way to get it back.
“The police told us, ‘Hey, we can’t do anything unless it ends up in a pawn shop,'” says Edgar Viveros, 27, lead guitarist for Ben Quad. The pawnshops they called said no.
Instead of canceling the tour, the bands decided to continue playing with borrowed gear. They also set up a crowdfunding page and were surprised to see how quickly the donations poured in — $6,000 in about four hours.
The robbery was “quite heartbreaking,” Imre Griga, 23, a fan in Columbia, Mo., who attended three of the bands’ tour dates this month, said in an email. “I think the whole community felt that Forests deserved much better for their first tour in America.”
Within days, members of both bands were playing with new instruments. They went a bit longer without the pedalboard that Ben Quad usually uses to play samples, like the theme from an “Austin Powers” movie, between sets. But a replacement was eventually found for that too.
At home in Singapore, the robbery story and fan support, made headlines. Some readers commented on their own experiences of being robbed in the United States. Others wondered how the three members of Forests, who all have day jobs and tour on vacation, could be so naive.
For Forests it was not their first international tour: they have performed throughout the years in the Asia-Pacific region. But on their first tour of America, they loved watching the scenery—deserts, trees, snowy mountains—rush past the van’s windows.
They also kept a list of “crazy things” they’d seen, like people arguing in convenience stores, or the Seattle woman throwing her luggage down three flights of stairs in a subway station. The band’s drummer, Niki Koh, 31, said he particularly enjoyed visiting a shop that sold guns, knives and hunting equipment – “anything we won’t find in Singapore.”
“It’s a culture shock,” he said in a video interview from Kansas City. “But at the same time it’s very interesting.”
