On only the second day of their tour with Billy Talent, Florida’s Poison the Well woke up in Detroit to find their van and all of their gear stolen. We’ll let their MySpace do the talking.
“So this morning we woke up at our delightful Marriot Courtyard hotel (priceline, get into it) and walked outside to get in the van to head to Chicago for our second show of the tour. Only problem, it isn’t there. Either someone is pulling some Merlin shit on us and just waiting for the perfect moment to unveil it and calm our shot nerves, or a talented scumbag stole our van and trailer with literally everything we own inside. Needless to say, we’re crushed. Our most beloved instruments are gone, and trust me, we’re gear nerds.
After a great deal of scrambling and deliberation, we found a way to stay on tour, after a few days off to get some gear and a rental van together. Having something like this happen is the worst thing that can happen to any band short of someone dying, and we’re incredibly stoked to finish this tour with Billy Talent and play every night doing what we love.
Our most sincere thanks to everyone who offered to help us in any way, our friends mean the world to us and everyone who has reached out today is absolutely mind blowing. Huge huge ups to Adam, Dave, and Jackie at Yeah!, the entire Ferret Records Family (Carl cause hes got the cash and Rick cause he calls the shots), Issac and the entire Indie Merch and Jakprints family, Tour Dog Leasing and Rental (thanks for driving to detroit to come get us), Jimmy and First Act Guitars, Russel Blair and Orange Amps, Derek at Ernie Ball, Tyme Rogers and Tech 21, Evan Obrien and Korg, Scott Uchida and Jim Dunlop, Jon “Shabba on the spot” Linton, John “Badge” Chidley. Some of these people have always helped us out and are further making our lives better. Some of these people barely know us and have helped us this with this shit time.
If you want to help out, we’ll have a limited edition shirt online sometime soon that makes fun of our situation and is awesome, and all proceeds from that will go to wiping away our tears and some new tumbleweeds for the insides of our wallets. See you in a couple days. Pissed about our gear and passionate about this band as ever.
So in closing, if you’re in the Detroit area and someone tries to sell you a van or some music gear for really cheap, alert the authorities immediately. This sucks on a lot of levels. It’s good that they’re going to be able to finish the tour, but that’s really about the only good thing about this story. Preying on a band, especially one that needs to slog it out on the road in a van (and one that wasn’t even in great shape to begin with), is low. Even for Detroit.
