ROBBERY ON TOUR
The tour had started off great.
It had been quite a while since the Artist had done a proper run across the continental United States. Their previous full-length album had come out in the fall of 2019, just a few months before the entire world plunged into the coronavirus pandemic. Live shows — let alone massive tours — had to be forgotten for several years.
At last, the wait was over. A new album was ready, a route had taken shape, and most importantly — the budget allowed not for a van, but for a fully-fledged tour bus, a house on wheels! For many of us, this was a brand-new experience, and the air buzzed with anticipation of a fun trip filled with the kind of comfort only real rock stars enjoy.
Today was our first day off. The three opening shows had gone loudly and successfully — the audience had clearly missed the band. As usual at the start of any tour, something broke, something was forgotten, but the crew quickly patched the holes and fixed the hiccups. It was time to talk through the past few days and properly get to know one another — many of us had jumped straight into work right off a plane, barely having time to remember each other’s names.
Early autumn in California is a pleasant time. The sun no longer scorches during the day, and the nights haven’t yet turned cold. We had to take advantage of it — over the next few weeks, the tour would lead us south, into the deserts of Nevada and Arizona, where we’d be frying and boiling; and then north, to Canada, where cold rain and wind are an inevitable October reality. And there wouldn’t be many proper days off ahead.
The day was leaning toward sunset. We parked the bus by a huge DoubleTree hotel, gathered all the chairs from the cafeteria, and settled outside under a small awning — even though rain wasn’t expected in these parts for several months.
Drinks materialized from the bus fridge, and various snacks emerged from storage — things we’d taken from the dressing rooms but hadn’t yet put to use. The dinner table was set!
We sat in a small circle, drank beer, introduced ourselves, shared personal stories, plans, gossip, and laughed at nonsense. Hotel security guards drove by a few times in a golf cart; we waved at them, and they waved us back with a flashlight.
After a few hours, the musicians began nodding off, saying their goodnights and heading back to the bus one by one. Eventually, my turn came too.
When I woke up in the morning, I brushed my teeth, downed a glass of cold-brew coffee, and stepped outside to stretch my legs. The sky was completely cloudless, and the day promised to be quite pleasant. After finishing my silly workout, I went to the hotel room to take a shower.
On the way back I ran into Colin, our tour manager. He gave me a strange look and asked:
— Alex, did you open the trailer?
— Nope, I just got back from the shower. Maybe it was Stacy?
— Well, maybe… But does she even have the keys?
From the sleeping compartment, the sleepy artists rolled out one by one into the bright daylight, wearing wrinkled T-shirts. For the first time since the tour began, the bus had stayed parked overnight instead of driving somewhere, and we’d silently agreed to take advantage of it and get some real sleep. Now everyone gathered in the front lounge, squinting and slowly sipping their first morning coffee. As we gradually came to life, we kept tossing around the dumb jokes we hadn’t quite finished the night before.
Stacy came back from the hotel.
— GOOD MORNING, STACY! — our little boy-scout squad shouted in unison.
She was our driver and a proud grandmother. Also, she should have had generator maintenance at 7:30 that morning.
— Stace, you didn’t happen to open the trailer, did you? — Colin asked cautiously.
— Nope. I finished with the generator and went to get breakfast. I don’t even have the keys for it!
— This makes no sense, I don’t get it, — Colin muttered — James, guys, let’s go take a look.
Confused, we spilled outside and stared at the trailer. The trailer — a massive black box on wheels — held all the concert equipment, musical instruments, and merch. The main loading usually happened through a fold-down ramp, and for convenience there was also a small side door. Both were locked at night with a padlock.
The ramp was wide open, even though, as far as we knew, none of us had touched it in the past twenty-four hours. It was a day off! The equipment, at least visually, seemed to be in place.
— Let’s lift it up and see what’s going on.
It turned out the padlock on the ramp had been cut off with an angle grinder.
When you work in the live music industry, sooner or later you start hearing stories about cars, vans, and buses being broken into — and musical equipment being stolen.
Things like that can happen in any country, but the undisputed record holder is, of course, the United States. Even among the relatively small number of artists I personally know, at least three have had their belongings stolen in this region.
Sometimes a window gets smashed and a backpack left on a seat is snatched. Sometimes a trailer lock gets cut and larger cases are hauled away. But the wildest story happened to friends of mine from Idaho — they were followed for several hours after a show, and that night someone cracked the driver’s door and hot-wired the entire van with the trailer attached. A few weeks later, the police found it wrecked somewhere in the countryside — the trailer doors (obviously already emptied) had been cut open with an angle grinder, and inside were crack pipes scattered across the floor.
Even I almost ended up in a similar situation on my very first tour. In San Diego, in broad daylight, a drug addict approached our van in a parking lot with a crowbar. We noticed in time and started shouting at him. The tour manager warned us from getting close or making physical contact, since that guy might have been armed. He ran away before the police arrived.
When anyone has their belongings stolen, it’s always unpleasant. Even if the property is insured, there’s paperwork, claims to file, and then you have to wait to be reimbursed.
In the case of concert tours, one such incident can mean the end of an artist’s entire career. The necessary equipment is collected piece by piece over many years and can be worth substantial amounts of money. It’s bad enough when someone steals a backpack with an $800 camera. But what if it’s an entire trailer worth $100,000+?
First of all, many artists don’t have insurance at all. Insurance for expensive gear is costly, and not everyone can afford to add that expense to an already tight tour budget.
Second, if the equipment disappears, the artist simply can’t continue playing shows. Finding the same 50 pieces of gear needed for the show on the same day — and programming everything again from scratch — is unrealistic. No shows means no performance fees, and the whole tour economy starts to collapse very quickly.
And third — how would you even buy replacements? Even if the insurance payout arrives a couple of weeks later, and even if there’s a huge music equipment store in town — where do you get the money in the first place?
The worst possible time to have something stolen is the beginning of a tour, when savings have already gone toward the bus deposit, hotels are booked, part of the crew has been paid, but the fees for the first shows haven’t come in yet because the concerts in question haven’t yet been played. During the first weeks of a tour, an artist is always running deep in the red, and there’s simply nowhere to pull a large sum of cash from quickly.
A theft like that can mean losing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, missing out on fees from canceled shows, and completely destroying an artist’s finances — literally bankrupting them.
When I became a tour manager, the possibility of ending up in such a situation became the main source of my paranoia. I spent huge amounts of time on security during preparation — where and how we park, what locks we use, and so on. The rental company that provides the bus and trailer doesn’t insure the equipment and bears no responsibility for it, so by default they hand over a flimsy $20 lock that needs to be replaced immediately.
So far, I’ve been lucky — but I don’t take credit for that. If someone really wants to rob you, neither a good lock nor an anti-personnel mine would help.
Still, I’d always wondered why these stories mostly seemed to come out of California. What’s so special about that state? Crime exists everywhere, and so do drugs. I (thankfully) know absolutely nothing about the varieties: heroin, fentanyl, crack — to me they all sound like “heavy drugs that cause instant addiction and death.” But one American musician I know, who grew up in a bad neighborhood, once explained it to me:
— On the East Coast it’s generally a bit calmer. There are a lot of conservative states, people own guns, and crime is somewhat controlled. As for drugs, heroin and fentanyl are the most common. They’re very sedating. After using them, people just pass out — they either lie on the ground or sit somewhere in a corner in a half-conscious state.
— But in California it’s completely different. I don’t know exactly why, but methamphetamine, or crystal meth — is very ‘popular’ there. The people who use it are fully conscious. They’re focused to the point of paranoia, often aggressive, fearless, and they have A LOT of energy.
And it seemed I was about to test this interesting theory firsthand.
— It’s hard to tell right away. We need to check, count everything…
When a trailer is packed with identical black equipment cases stacked on top of each other, it’s not easy to spot something missing without unloading everything onto the street.
— They stole my tools, — concluded James, the bass player.
— Looks like mine too, — added Dustin, the lighting designer.
— They were right at the front of the trailer. Open the ramp and they’d be staring you in the face. Guess they saw and grabbed it immediately.
— Guys, we’ve got a show to play. The soundcheck is in five hours. Was there anything in those cases that we absolutely need?
— In theory, no. Mostly just tools. Screwdrivers, DMX adapters, a soldering iron, an ammeter, stuff like that. But I don’t even remember everything that was in there — I built that kit over years. Probably spent three grand total! — James lamented, — and I’m not letting this slide.
— Same here, — Dustin muttered, getting very grumpy, — I don’t even have the money to put together another kit like that. And I’m going to need it today.
— How the fuck could this even happen?! It’s a hotel, god dammit! Entry by keycard, security on golf carts, cameras everywhere! Sons of a bitch!!!
Shocked and frustrated, we went back into the bus and reconvened, trying to reconstruct the chain of events step by step.
— I was the last one to leave, around 2 a.m., — said Jenn, the band’s manager, — The trailer was definitely closed, and there was no one near it.
— You sure? It was kinda dark.
— Of course I am. I’m a girl living in the U.S. that has a kid. At night I have 360 degrees owl vision. So no asshole tries to stab or assault me. I know what I saw. I’ve got eyes in the back of my head!
— I came to work on the generator at around 7:35, — Stacy added, — but I approached from the front side and didn’t see what was happening at the rear. I didn’t hear anything strange.
After gathering all the information within our team and speaking with the hotel manager and head of security, we constructed a draft first version of what had happened.
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Sacramento is a massive complex made up of eight separate buildings. Entry by car is controlled by a barrier gate, either with a room keycard or from reception.
However, the grounds aren’t fully fenced around the entire perimeter. One can’t drive in freely — but one can walk in. That’s fairly typical for many U.S. hotels. The receptionist didn’t recall any vehicles arriving overnight except for a couple of taxis that picked up passengers and left immediately.
So sometime between 2:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., the thieves arrived in the area. Most likely they parked in the adjacent public lot and continued on foot. They quickly spotted the bus — it was, well, hard to miss. And it was parked right next to a low fence separating the hotel grounds from that same public parking lot. As the saying goes — it was practically an invitation.
A lock greeted them on the ramp, but in the end it wasn’t even an obstacle. They didn’t bother cutting it — they simply cut the latch. The lock itself, still closed and bearing shallow scratch marks from initial attempts, hang on the top part of the latch.
When the thieves opened the ramp, they were probably very surprised.
By some stroke of luck, one day before these events, we had changed the internal packing order of the trailer. Previously, we loaded merch boxes first, then the large vertical truss structures with lighting fixtures attached, and only at the very end the small cases with expensive gear and tools. But after the last show, for some reason, we decided to roll the trusses in last.
That decision saved our entire tour.
When the ramp opened, the first thing the thieves saw in the darkness were massive aluminum columns, tightly cranked together with ratchet straps and connected by complex metal clamps. We secured them solidly so they wouldn’t sway or roll around when the bus braked or turned.
Unfastening those columns — even if you were the one who loaded them and knew where to start — would take a long time even in daylight. For thieves in the middle of the night, unfamiliar with the system, it was an impossible task. In effect, they ran straight into a thick metal wall from floor to ceiling. All the valuable juicy equipment was deeper inside the trailer, right behind that barrier.
They definitely tried to squeeze through — the two central columns now stood slightly angled toward each other, as if someone had attempted to force their way between them. But it didn’t work. The ratchet straps held.
Then something must have spooked them. Maybe they heard a security vehicle in the distance. Maybe lights came on in the windows. They grabbed whatever was within reach — which happened to be James’s and Dustin’s cases. The guys had left them before the columns, right “at the entrance.” The thieves tossed the cases over the fence to their car (we later found additional confirmation of that), and took off.
The trailer remained open until morning, when Colin discovered it.
If we hadn’t changed the loading order the day before that trailer would have been empty. Blind luck — what else can you say. None of the critically important equipment was stolen.
As for the angle grinder theory, it was quickly ruled out. I sent a photo of the cut latch to our technical chat with Molchat Doma, where knowledgeable people immediately explained that if it had been a circular saw, there would have been spark marks on the door and ground. “Those were definitely long cutters”, they said.
Makes sense — cutting metal with a grinder in the middle of the night right under the windows of a huge hotel is a bad plan. They worked quietly.
While the thieves were dealing with the lock and trying to reach the expensive gear, no one suspected a thing.
On the bus, just a few feet away from it all, seven people were sleeping peacefully and happily.
— Fucking bureaucrats, — Colin muttered angrily as he returned from the hotel manager’s office.
He had tried to request the external security camera footage from 2:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., but was politely shut down. The staff were happy to share their personal observations, but the moment it came to reviewing camera recordings, they refused.
— By the book, we’d need to call the police so they can document the theft, — Colin explained, — they’d file a preliminary report, it would go to the station, and then they’d issue an official version. With that, we could formally request the surveillance footage from the hotel.
There were 4 hours left until soundcheck. We had to decide quickly.
— Honestly, I don’t see much point in calling the cops, — Colin continued, — we’ll waste many hours. And even if they come quickly, by the time those reports move through the system and our request climbs up the hotel’s corporate ladder and comes back down, we’ll already be somewhere in Arizona. That’s days of waiting. Minimum!
— And what exactly are you hoping to see? — Stacy added, — A couple of blurry silhouettes in black, filmed from far away at some weird angle? Even if by some miracle you see their car and can read the license plate — where are you going to find that car? Sure, you could pass the plate back to the police and basically do their job for them, but the search would take another week or two. By then your stuff will have long been sold.
— The hotel manager said thefts like this happen in this part of California several times a day, — Colin concluded, — the police simply don’t investigate them. Our best option is to get a crime reference number and try to recover the money through insurance. Either we act immediately — or we just let it go.
— Wait! — James suddenly shouted, — I completely forgot there was an AirTag in my case. A tracker!
We all exchanged silent glances.
The same thought appeared in everyone’s head at once.
We could just call the police and calmly continue the tour. But we were full of energy, anger, and wounded pride. We’d been robbed in our sleep, right under our noses. No one felt like just letting that slide without a fight.
We crowded around the table, staring impatiently at the loading icon as the laptop booted up and connected to the bus Wi-Fi.
— Guys, I swear, I tossed it in there like three months ago and totally forgot about it, — James said apologetically, — Okay, it’s up. Turning on location tracking now!
— Got it!, — The AirTag icon popped up on the map ten miles north of us.
— Dustin, did you have a tracker in your case too?
— Unfortunately not, didn’t think of it. Really regretting that now!
With the approximate location of James’s tracker in hand, we opened Google Maps and started wandering through the Street View.
The neighborhood, frankly, didn’t look great. When you live in a big city, your routes usually run between main points of attraction — home, office district, supermarket, bar street, something like that. Those areas generally look decent. But every city also has zones where sun never shines, places you’d almost never stumble into by accident.
This was exactly that kind of area. Untidy houses. Cracked asphalt. Peeling paint on fences. Collapsing wooden barns.
But it turned out to have one unexpected advantage. If the AirTag had ended up in an apartment block, we could’ve stopped the search right there. GPS shows location from above — if it were inside a multi-story building, we’d have no way of knowing whether our case was on the first floor or the fifteenth. In a concrete ant house of dozens, if not hundreds, of apartments, it would’ve been a needle in a haystack.
This whole area looked more like farmland — detached houses, each with a big plot of land around it. The tracker was showing right in the center of one specific single-story house and did not move.
— Guys, the gear is 100% there. We’ve got to go!
The excitement and rush of adrenaline quickly gave way to anxiety — we began seriously discussing what this might lead to.
Whoever had stolen our stuff in the middle of the night hadn’t done it out of a good life. It could’ve been random junkies with cutters who needed money for a fix. Or it could’ve been an organized gang feeding off the constant stream of touring musicians passing through California. Either way, potentially they may have been armed. After all, this was America.
No one wanted to take a bullet. And that would definitely be the end of the tour.
After more discussions, we decided to go to the location, scout it out, call the cops, and approach any direct confrontation only with them present. Meanwhile, the bus would head to soundcheck, and we would return straight to the venue — with or without the equipment.
Colin volunteered to go — diplomatic, already in contact with the police. And James — the AirTag was linked to his phone.
— Let’s not be overly pessimistic, — Colin said, — I’ve heard similar stories from other bands. They just rang the doorbell and asked for the stolen gear back. No police, no bulletproof vests, no threats. Granted, those were huge metal/hardcore guys who looked pretty intimidating. Not exactly like us. So… depends on luck.
A long silence hung in the air.
— Oh, of course, — I laughed, — the moment we’re heading into a possible shootout, suddenly we need to bring the Russian along, right? Fine. Where do I sign? Let’s go already!
The Uber gradually pulled away from the hotel, looping through endless interchanges on the way out of the city.
There’s a big difference between promising to do something and actually doing it. Our cheerful colleagues were no longer there, shouting after us, “go get them boys!”. The comfort and familiarity of our home on wheels were gone. We were heading into the unknown, toward potential trouble — and the smirks slowly faded from our faces.
The realization settled in gradually. James patted his pockets.
— I grabbed one too, just in case, — Colin added.
It turned out that, without saying a word to each other, each of us had armed himself with whatever was at hand.
— Guys, I’m the only non-American here, — I said, trying to assess my usefulness, — so I might miss some context. You two take the lead — I’ll back you up, okay? And I’ll film whatever I can if it’s safe. I’ll write a book about our adventures, win a Pulitzer…”
— Don’t get ahead of yourself. Let’s handle the job first.
We decided to get dropped off at “Hickory Hank’s Barbecue” — the only open eatery within several miles. It seemed more reasonable than driving straight up to the suspected criminals’ front door and loitering around their house, peeking through windows. We’d sit in the café like normal customers, call the cops, and maybe circle the block to scout things out.
Upon arrival, we were met with disappointment — the first of many. Business must not have gone well for Hank. No diner existed at that location, and judging by the looks of it, it hadn’t for quite some time. Why Google Maps hadn’t updated was unclear — especially considering the strange irony that Google’s headquarters were located just one city over, in San Francisco. Apparently this neighborhood really had been forgotten by everyone.
Instead of cozy wooden tables with sun umbrellas, we found a pile of construction debris surrounded by a concrete fence and tightly welded steel gates. From the fence to the edge of a busy highway was barely 15 feet, and on that narrow strip of land we awkwardly shuffled our feet, trying to decide what to do next.
— Great start, guys. Just fucking perfect.
— Call the cops, I guess. What else is there?
— Good afternoon, I called earlier about a trailer theft at the DoubleTree. Yes, the musicians, that’s right. We’ve located a possible position of the stolen items using a geo-tracker. We’re currently at Hickory Hank’s Barbecue — or what’s left of it. We need assistance. Could you please send a patrol? Great, thank you. Roughly how long? Okay, got it. We’ll wait.
— We’re third in line. Once the patrol finishes the first two calls, they’ll head here. No exact timeframe.
It was past noon now. The vertical, merciless sun roasted three self-appointed warriors of justice. There was almost nowhere to hide in the shade on our tiny patch of land. The temperature climbed to 94°F. The pleasant cloudless morning had turned into an oven.
An empty stare drilled into our backs — spray-painted on the fence was a cowboy pig cheerfully preparing to execute a chicken, a pig, and a cow. The only evidence that barbecue had once existed here.
— Such a lovely artwork, — commented Colin, who was vegan.
We walked around the neighbourhood a bit, but there was nothing to do, and we didn’t want to loiter near strangers’ houses and attract attention. Back at the pig graffiti, we began photographing every car exiting the street where the mysterious house was located. Probably to ease our consciences and simulate productivity. Or just out of boredom.
— Maybe they forgot about us. Would you call them again, Colin?
— Sure. Hello again! Yes, I called earlier about the trailer. Any updates? Second in line? Okay. Understood. We’re still waiting.
— I’m about to piss myself. It’d be funny if while we’re waiting for one set of cops, another arrests me for pissing on this stupid fence.
— What a hole, honestly, — James groaned, — there’s no gas stations, no cafés nearby on the map. But I see a pet store twenty minutes away on foot! They probably have a bathroom. Let me call them real quick…
— Hello, is this the pet store? Hi! I wanted to ask — do you happen to sell water or any kind of food? Food for humans, not animals, — James clarified, while Colin and I cracked up at that detail, — okay, thanks! I’ll be there soon!
— Alright, guys, I’m heading out on reconnaissance. If the police show up, call me — I’ll run back!
Forty minutes later, James returned with two packs of beef jerky and three bottles of water. For Colin, who didn’t eat meat, he bought a chocolate bar. That was all the “human food” the store had.
We had melted in the sun, turning into delirious vegetables. We couldn’t stray from the meeting point to search for shade — if we missed the patrol car, everything would reset. And there was no visible shade anyway. I was genuinely worried about getting a heatstroke.
Dusty, filthy, drenched in sweat, ears sunburned, we jumped and waved at passing police cars. Apparently those were some other police cars, that were not meant for us.
Colin made another trip to the pet store and returned with more chocolate. He reported that the tour bus with the rest of the band had already left the hotel for soundcheck.
Our phone batteries started dying. In the heat, they drained rapidly, so we put the phones away. Every possible topic had been exhausted. We just stood there silently, staring at the ground.
— If the cops don’t show up in the next half hour, let’s forget this whole thing. Fuck it. How long can we wait? This isn’t human!
And then — after nearly four hours under the blazing sun, when we were close to giving up — a police vehicle pulled up.
The lettering on the side said:
Two young officers stepped out of the car, fully geared up — uniforms, body armor, radios, and belts loaded with all sorts of equipment: pepper spray, a taser, handcuffs, extra ammo. Each had a handgun on the side. Not being used to American realities, I immediately felt uneasy.
— Gentlemen, good day. How can we help you?
James, already half-melted from the heat, started explaining everything from the beginning. Our equipment had been stolen, there was an AirTag inside, and now it was pointing to a house at this exact address and hadn’t moved for several hours.
The officers wrote down the address and our phone numbers, then said something along these lines:
— Guys, we won’t lie to you — stories like yours happen around here several times a day. The most we can do is drive to that house and conduct a Knock & Talk. Without a warrant, we can’t go inside, and the homeowners — especially if they really did steal something from you — know that perfectly well. We’ll go ahead, try to talk to them, and we’ll call you over once it’s safe.
I asked, — guys, what’s a Knock & Talk?
— It’s when the cops knock on the door and have a non-binding conversation.
— Welcome to America, Alex! — James laughed, — with all our modern technology, we can pinpoint a specific house by satellite, but the police still can’t go inside. Unless, of course, someone starts shooting at them first, ha-ha!
— I’m ashamed to admit it, but we’re lucky the three of us are white, — Colin added, — otherwise they probably wouldn’t have helped us at all. This is America!
— I think they turned the wrong way, by the way! Oh, he’s calling me already! Let’s go meet them!
The officers had indeed driven off in the wrong direction, but we quickly caught up and pointed out the exact house.
— Listen up, when we go knock on that door, please stand behind our vehicle.
— Of course, no problem, officer. But if you don’t mind me asking why?
— In case of incoming fire from inside the house.
“Holy fuck”, flashed through my mind, — “so all those jokes about getting shot weren’t really jokes were they? What the hell have you dragged yourself into this time, Alex?” It’s one thing when your bassist friend jokes about it, and another when it’s an armed sheriff on duty.
But there was no turning back. I firmly decided that no matter what, I would film what was happening. At the same time, I reminded myself that our goal was to recover the stolen gear, not to shoot a Netflix documentary. So to avoid pissing anyone off with my phone, I filmed only objects, not people. Neither the police nor the homeowners.
The house itself wasn’t remarkable — just a one-story gray building with a patch of land around it. At a glance, I’d say it could house two or three families.
A fairly new white family-size car was parked in the driveway. Several older cars were scattered around the property. Just in case, I photographed their license plates, hoping to later check hotel security footage and see whether any of them had visited the DoubleTree hotel that unfortunate night.
About ten sheep were running between the cars, bleating loudly. The whole atmosphere was a bit psychedelic — like something out of a madhouse.
— Guys, you won’t believe this, — James whispered, — my phone just connected directly to the AirTag. We’re within range. I’ve got a signal! I can trigger the sound alert anytime…
The cops knocked on the door. Almost immediately, a young woman opened. They explained the situation: musicians, stolen equipment, geo-tracker pointing to your address. She looked genuinely surprised — said she hadn’t heard anything about any equipment. Or at least, that’s what she claimed.
A little boy came out from deeper inside the house and wrapped his arms around her leg.
And that’s when I realized what a strange psychological game we were playing. What does a thief even look like? Someone who breaks into cars at night and cuts locks? They don’t walk around all day wearing a mask or a balaclava, and an angle grinder isn’t sticking out of their sweatpants.
If you make a living stealing, sooner or later the police will knock on your door. Such a person knows perfectly well that officers can’t enter the house without a warrant — and no matter how many of them show up, without one they can’t do anything. And you can’t get a warrant without evidence — which we didn’t have either. Sure, we had a direct connection to the tracker. So what? The most logical tactic is simply to lie. And a professional thief is probably pretty good at it.
I looked at that girl and realized we had absolutely no way of knowing whether she was lying or not. Did she look like a thief? Of course not. But what do thieves look like?
The officers’ tactic was to ask leading questions without directly accusing anyone — as if someone else might have committed the crime. For example: Do you own this house or rent it? If you rent, does anyone else live here? Who else has keys? Do all the cars on the property belong to you? Did any unfamiliar vehicles come by during the night? Does anyone else have access to the barns outside? And so on.
— Ma’am, would you mind if we walk around the property and try to locate the tracker?
— Of course, no problem. Just please don’t take too long.
One of the officers waved at James, and they began walking around the house, carefully stepping over sheep turds and dirt. They even opened the car parked by the entrance, but it contained nothing but a child seat, toys, and candy wrappers. James waved his phone around as they disappeared behind the house.
— I lost the signal… It was there, and then it just vanished. According to the map, the AirTag was 6 feet away — but there was no signal. I don’t understand what the hell is going on.
The police thanked the homeowners for their time and stepped back outside.
— That’s all from us guys, — the first officer concluded, — we’ve done everything we can.
— If we’d had a strong signal, maybe we could’ve tried convincing them to let us inside, — the second officer added, — but it disappeared, so there’s nothing more we can do. We’re heading out. Good luck!
We thanked them for their time and watched the police car drive away, turn and disappear. They really had done everything possible in that situation — and we didn’t have solid evidence anyway. If only they’d arrived earlier…
I thought maybe the thieves had opened the equipment case, seen the AirTag, and tossed it out the window while driving down this street. That would explain why we had a signal but no case. I crawled through every ditch around the house and even climbed into a trash bin, but found nothing.
Then our team called from the venue.
— Guys, where the hell are you? We’ve set up and soundchecked everything we could, but we can’t finish without you. At the very least, we need the bass player!
Burned, dirty, angry, and exhausted, the three of us sat on the scorching asphalt, clutching our heads.
Our phones were nearly dead — Colin had drained his making calls, James when searching for the tracker, and I’d been saving mine to call an Uber back. And now it was time.
More than five hours of this hell had been for nothing. We had to forget it, head back to soundcheck empty-handed, and apologize to everyone for being late.
But then, like in some Disney cartoon, a lightbulb lit up in my head.
— You said when we were standing by the fence of the house, you had a weak signal, right?
— But when you went onto the property and behind the house, the signal disappeared?
— So doesn’t that mean that if you were walking toward the house and the signal was getting weaker… we should’ve been walking in the opposite direction? AWAY FROM THE HOUSE?
Silence hung in the air. The meaning of my words slowly seeped into our overheated brains.
Slowly, like in a movie, we turned our heads in the opposite direction and stared at the house across the street — about 70 feet away.
There, right on the lawn in front of the porch, not even trying to hide, just like that, stood our stolen case.
It’s astonishing what exhaustion, anger, and adrenaline can do to the human brain.
We spent about forty minutes with the police at the first house — the one the geo-pin on James’s phone had mistakenly pointed to. All our attention had narrowed into a thin beam, crawling over their backyard like the Eye of Sauron, searching for any trace of the stolen gear. We were so convinced our equipment was there that listening to common sense, or at least just turning around, never even crossed our minds.
All that time, the case had simply been standing behind our backs.
— Ready Player One! — Colin shouted, crouched down, and ran. He grabbed the case and sprinted back toward the road, ducking behind a randomly parked car nearby. The sheriff’s lesson about “possible incoming fire from inside the building” had not gone to waste.
— How the fuck could we screw this up so badly, guys?! — we all groaned over each other.
— Alex, why the fuck didn’t you think of this earlier?!
— Uhh… maybe because I don’t have any brain cells left, JUST LIKE YOU?!
— Come on, open this shit! It feels way too light!
Colin popped the latches and opened the case. It was empty. Well, not entirely...
James’s tools definitely weren’t inside. But there was a tape measure and some strange orange box covered in Arabic script. Not ours. Also empty. Maybe it once held perfume. Or religious books. It didn’t help the situation much, but definitely added to the surrealism. Finding what looked like a Quran box inside our stolen case in California — now that’s a story!
— Wow, they scraped off all the stickers too! So clean! — noticed James.
Like for many people in creative industries, his case used to be covered in layers of stickers — accumulated over years of touring and various projects. Now it was just a plain black shell, covered in scratch marks and glue residue. Only in a couple of “hard-to-reach” spots had some stickers survived—that’s how we were able to confirm the case was indeed ours and not someone else’s.
One of the wheels was broken, twisted at an unnatural angle. It was a Nanuk model — the kind of case that’s practically indestructible. We were genuinely surprised to see that kind of damage. It indirectly confirmed our earlier theory that the thieves had thrown the cases over a fence into the adjacent parking lot.
The AirTag was supposed to be inside a pouch with screwdrivers, but the pouch wasn’t there.
I asked James to open the map again.
He pulled out his phone and opened Find My Device. The AirTag icon refreshed after a couple of seconds, and jumped from the first house to the second. The phone showed a direct connection signal. The tracker was within range again.
If the case was in our hands, the AirTag wasn’t inside, and we still had a live signal, that could mean only one thing.
Our tools were inside the second house. This time — one hundred percent.
Only now, the cops were gone. And it was just the three of us, face to face with an imaginary enemy.
Colin dialed the number the officer had used earlier when they’d initially driven the wrong way. But the phone system rerouted the call back to dispatch.
— Hello, yes, we were just with your officers at this address, they left about fifteen minutes ago. We found part of the stolen equipment and have now identified the exact house where the rest is located. Could you ask them to come back? Okay. Got it. We’ll wait.
— They’ve put us at the end of the queue, — he said gloomily, — we’re fifth in line or something. It’ll be at least another four hours.
We had to decide what to do. Storming the house without police backup didn’t sound appealing to anyone.
We went back to the first house and rang the bell again. The same girl opened the door, along with her sister. Both looked extremely unhappy to see the same faces they’d already spent an hour with.
— Ladies, sorry to bother you again! We actually found our equipment near that house over there, but part of it is still inside, — Colin activated his full diplomatic mode, handing out compliments left and right, — since you’re neighbours and live across the street, could you tell us anything about them?
They sighed and told us a story.
Exactly the one none of us wanted to hear.
— We’ve lived here about two years, but we’ve never seen the people from that house. No one ever comes out during the day. But we’ve definitely heard them. A few times a week there’s some kind of party or gathering at night. Random cars without plates show up and park, and the music blasts until morning. Sometimes they race around the neighbourhood screaming at the top of their lungs. We have small children — we don’t even look out the windows at night, let alone go outside. It’s not right.
— And last night? Was there music?
— Oh yes. You guys can try knocking, of course, but I promise you — no one’s going to open the door during the day. Good luck.
We thanked them and went back to the road to process what we’d just heard.
And what we’d heard really meant only one thing.
We were standing in front of a drug den.
The second house itself didn’t stand out much either. Light gray walls, sloped roof, white window frames — if we hadn’t been in California, it could’ve passed for basic Scandinavian design.
In front of the door stood a jeep with a flat front tire, covered in dust and dried rain streaks — clearly not running anymore. Next to it was a sedan with tampered plates, presumably the one the residents actually used.
The surrounding land deserved special attention. Even on Google Maps we’d noticed that the lot belonging to the second house was enormous — several times larger than any neighboring property. It had probably once been pasture for livestock.
If you scroll back through old Street View images, you can see a green meadow, and even an elderly man mowing the lawn.
Now the once-green field had turned into a black wasteland. A massive scorched square. I couldn’t say whether it was deliberate arson or an accident, but the fire had been so intense it had charred even the wooden fence posts around the perimeter.
Against the blackened ground, tire tracks stood out clearly. Apparently, the homeowners, or their guests, now raced cars and did donuts on the burnt land like it was a racetrack.
That view, combined with the neighbours’ story, led us to some deeply unsettling conclusions. Saying we were on edge would be an understatement.
We didn’t know how many people were inside. Whether they were sober or still high. And most importantly, we didn’t know whether they were armed.
Waiting for the cops was pointless. The situation had turned into a classic “us vs. them.”
Colin tried to convince James and I that we were overthinking it.
— You’re applying normal logic to a logic of a drug user. There might not be any master plan, just withdrawal and the need for a fix. They might not even have kitchen knives left in the house, let alone firearms!
— Fuck, man, — I pushed back, — maybe we should just forget the equipment?! Enough adventure for one day! I’d rather not end up in a hospital. Or a morgue. If any of us gets hurt, the tour’s over.
— I agree with Alex, — James added, — it isn’t worth it. Nothing good is waiting for us behind that door except another clusterfuck.
— I didn’t spend six hours melting out here with you guys just to walk away! I’m going to knock. It’ll be on my conscience, okay? It’s been a pleasure working with you boys, even if not for long. Alex, if something happens to me, you will be the new tour manager!
James and I stayed by the road so the residents wouldn’t freak out seeing three angry guys at their porch. It was important that they at least open the door and start a conversation. We also kept an eye out for the cops, just in case they miraculously decided to return early.
Colin walked confidently toward the front door and knocked. I took a photo of him, with the strange thought that it might be the last picture of him ever.
Somewhere behind the house, a side door creaked open.
A massive dog burst out — tall enough to reach Colin’s waist.
It froze in place and stared at the uninvited guest.
“Well, now we’re fucked", — flashed through my mind.
I never though about how to properly kill a dog before.
In all the movies where villains set dogs on the main character, the protagonist somehow skillfully throws them off or shoots accurately, but the animals themselves were never shown in close-up. Apparently, for ethical reasons. And then in the credits it said: “No animals were harmed during the making of this film.”
But what do you do with a real one? Where do you hit it? In the throat, in the stomach, in the eyes? Kick it with your feet, or what?
The dog is looking at Colin, and Colin is looking at the dog. What a huge bastard! I watch them from the side, gripping a knife in my pocket. Blood pounds in my head, and at any moment I’m ready to rush forward — to stab the poor animal. As unpleasant as it is for me, in this situation ten times out of ten I choose our tour manager.
The dog starts wagging its tail, runs up to Colin, and licks his hands.
— Good dog, — Colin says friendly, scratching the dog behind the ear. Although I can see that he’s still shaking. His hand in his pocket wasn’t just there for nothing either.
On the dog’s sides — fur hanging in dirty clumps. On the chest — scars and a few fresh cuts that have already started to fester. On the face — sores. Tearful eyes. Clearly, no one has taken care of her. I felt very sorry for the dog, even though 30 seconds ago I was ready to rip her open with my own knife.
A couple of minutes later, the homeowner lady appeared from around the corner of the house:
— Who are you, and what do you want?
Colin, once again proving himself a remarkable diplomat, began politely explaining our situation. Just like the police had before, he asked leading questions and didn’t accuse anyone directly. Although this time, the guilt was obvious.
— I haven’t heard anything about any equipment, — she muttered, — no suitcases were brought to us at night.
Oooookay. So, she decided to lie.
— And what can you say about the black plastic case that was on your lawn? — Colin gave me a sign, and I lifted James’s case over my head.
— Who knows what’s on my lawn? Anyone could have left it! — she continued lying.
— Listen, — Colin decided to bring out the heavy artillery, — we understand that you might not be aware of everything, but there is a tracker in our things, and right now it is inside your house.
She had no answer to that argument.
— Do you mind if we, along with my colleagues, come inside and take a look? We don’t want any trouble, no police — we just want to get our things, that’s all.
The lady hesitated: — I need to discuss this with my husband… Wait, I’ll be right back…
Oooookay, so that means there’s at least one more person inside. A male.
Pretty quickly, she returned and allowed us to enter the house.
Well, that was news! This was the last thing we expected.
Colin waved to James and me, we approached, and politely greeted her.
It was impossible to determine the homeowner’s age. She looked simultaneously 25 and 50. Very thin, wearing an unwashed dirty tank top. The skin on her arms and face was some strange earthy color and equally strange texture — not wrinkled, but not smooth either; I can’t even describe exactly what it was. Here and there on her skin were patches of an unclear color. It was impossible to tell if it was dirt, sunburn, bruises, or something else. Yellow teeth, yellow eyeballs, and greasy, unwashed hair tied in a bun. She avoided eye contact, constantly scratched her hands, and moved and spoke in a very strange way.
During tours across America, I had seen plenty of homeless drug addicts living in tents under bridges and in parks. But I had never faced one up close like this.
We went into the house. The husband wasn’t in the living room, and the lady kept disappearing into the inner rooms to “consult” with him. In the end, we never saw him. Maybe it was for the best.
Just in case, each of us was once again gripping a knife in our pocket, ready to act at any moment.
The house looked exactly like a proper drug den should.
Dirty, greasy furniture, piles of mysterious items, bags and bundles scattered around. Trash on the floor, a heap of unwashed dishes, and, of course, a very distinct smell. I don’t want to seem snobbish — if someone barged into my home unannounced, it probably wouldn’t be spotless either. But I can say with certainty that normal people’s living rooms don’t look like this.
Right at the entrance, we found another case of equipment. We were happy to think it was Dustin’s case, but it turned out to be some other case belonging to another unfortunate music band.
James took out his phone, connected to the tracker, and pressed the sound signal button. Somewhere in a corner between the couches, a backpack started ringing.
We pulled it outside and began spreading its contents on the lawn. Including the very pouch with the screwdrivers, inside of which laid the lifesaving AirTag. And at that moment, as if by magic, James’s phone finally died.
— There’s only half of my tools here, — he estimated at a glance — let’s keep looking, since we’ve already started!
— Ma’am, can you tell us where you got our equipment if you insisted you didn’t have it? And why did you remove all the stickers?
The homeowner hesitated: — My husband bought this case last night at the 7-Eleven parking lot for fifty dollars! It was already like that!
Everything looked very suspicious. On one hand, we had no direct proof that they had broken into our trailer themselves. Maybe they really bought the case from thieves. On the other hand, why go through the trouble of getting rid of it and transferring the stolen items into a random backpack? It was clear these people were lying from start to finish, but we had no leverage over them, nor the emotional energy left to deal with it.
We went through the house one more time and even asked to open a small shed in the yard, but neither Dustin’s case nor the second half of James’s tools were there. It was time to accept the situation as it was and get back to the venue to focus on our main job.
So we had found half of one case’s contents — only 25% of what was stolen.
Reluctantly, Colin thanked the lady for her “help”, and left his phone number, adding that if she “remembered” anything, we would be glad to retrieve the rest for a reward. That was a good idea, since they didn’t know the real value of the equipment. A hundred dollar bill would have solved the problem.
— The backpack, by the way, I need it back, — the woman remembered.
I called an Uber, and we headed back to the venue.
The driver politely asked: — Guys, what were you doing in that area?
Colin briefly recounted the events of the past eight hours.
— Are you fucking nuts? You could’ve been killed there, and no one would’ve known! — the driver exclaimed. — you better just stay away from them! I’ve lived in Sacramento a long time; you wouldn’t believe what they do to people!
— Apparently, not today, — we could only reply. There was no energy left for conversations.
In the following weeks, James, Colin, and I discussed what had happened a few times.
We figured out why the AirTag had initially shown the wrong house. I was surprised to realize that all this time I had been incorrectly calling it a “GPS-tracker.” These little devices have nothing to do with geolocation.
Such a tracker emits a weak Bluetooth signal around itself, which nearby iPhones pick up and anonymously send to Apple. The owner of the tracker then receives this data and can see on a map where their AirTag is located. This is a known fact, stated in the specifications on Apple’s official website. But the problem is, that’s not entirely true.
The data the tracker’s owner receives contains GPS coordinates not of the tracker itself, but of the iPhone that “saw” it.
Roughly speaking, two young girls with iPhones lived in the first house. In the second house, there were addicts without any phones. The iPhones inside the first house picked up the AirTag signal from the second house and sent their own GPS coordinates to Apple. That’s why the tracker appeared to be “inside” the first house, but James had lost the connection when he walks “towards it”.
The very next day, we bought new locks for the trailer. It didn’t make sense to fuss over the material of the lock — even if it were made of kryptonite, as long as it hung on an aluminum latch, that’s what would get cut. So we simply chose a different type — a solid round lock covering the entire mechanism. Each weighed about 2 kg and was a weapon in itself. That was something we definitely had to keep in mind when discussing the right model.
We bought a bag of AirTags and spread them wherever possible. Dustin laughed the most, since at the time of the theft his case didn’t have one, and had therefore vanished into the endless wastelands of methamphetamine California. “Better late than never,” he summarized, slipping one into a backpack pocket.
James quickly got back into work mode and rocked on the stage as if nothing had happened. He complained for a long time that he would rather have preferred to have his bass guitar stolen — just one item that could be quickly replaced. But his case contained dozens of different sets of tools and small devices, which would now take several months to reassemble.
Colin waited for the police report, filled out a form for all the missing equipment, and sent it to the insurance company. Within a couple of weeks, the full amount was reimbursed. And considering that we still managed to recover 25% of the tools, we considered the extra money a bonus for the moral damage suffered.
As for me — I had mixed feelings.
First, I was very glad that we all remained alive and no one ended up with any extra holes in their body. No matter how thrilling and wild it was in the moment, objectively we really could have ended up in a situation with irreversible consequences for our health. The fact that everything turned out relatively calmly for us in the end does not mean the same situation would have the same outcome for anyone else.
Second, strangely, in hindsight, I’m glad this story even happened. My worst nightmare would be getting into a similar situation at the beginning of the tour and having to handle it alone. But at the moment it happened, I wasn’t the tour manager. I was there beside him the whole time, and now I know what to do and what definitely NOT to do. You could say I copied Colin’s exam answers.
Third, I saw and felt a side of America I never expected to encounter. It’s one thing when a white-toothed YouTube blogger tells you about drug problems in San Francisco from a phone screen. It’s another thing entirely when you wander a burned-out wasteland without a bulletproof vest, water, and air support, searching for stolen screwdrivers. And then you go into the homes of people whose last teeth will soon fall out on their own.
Before, I regarded addicts with contempt, even disgust. But after watching dozens of interviews on the Soft White Underbelly channel, and after this “personal introduction,” my perspective changed significantly. Many of these people were born into such hell that from an early age they had no chance of ever escaping it. It made me value the environment I grew up in more and regard those less fortunate with sympathy.
Of course, if our stuff got stolen, the situation still becomes “us vs. them.” But I no longer consider them second-class humans.
For eight hours, this story took the three of us back and forth on an emotional rollercoaster. From the peak of adrenaline to the depths of despair, and back again, over and over.
But I was still waiting for the final twist — for us to get the video from the hotel surveillance cameras.
Imagine how psychedelic it would have been to watch on a monitor as thieves cut the lock off the trailer, knowing that just a few pixels away, you’re sleeping peacefully.
We had a working theory about exactly how everything happened — how the cases were thrown over the fence, and so on. But on video, it could have been completely different, and our theory could have shattered into pieces, adding another twenty pages to this text.
But alas, it didn’t happen. We sent numerous official requests to the hotel, but all of them got lost in the endless corridors of management and corporate approval chains.
When six months had passed since the robbery, I accepted the fact that we would never get the video. And decided to publish the story as it is.
(This article was published with the approval of the band. Dialogue is based on real conversations, though not word for word)
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