Cancer Bats have run into a wave of unfortunate events while on tour supporting He Is Legend alongside Strawberry Girls and Crush++. Following their fourth stop in Indianapolis, IN at Black Circle on April 20th, the band discovered their van, trailer, gear, and merchandise had been stolen overnight on the 21st. While the van and trailer have since been recovered, the van was damaged and in need of repair. Unfortunately, their equipment and merchandise are still missing.
The band addressed the incident on social media, stating:
“Last night after our show in Indianapolis, our van and trailer were stolen from our hotel while we slept. We’ve recovered the van, but the trailer and all our equipment and merchandise are gone.
We unfortunately have to cancel our show tonight in St. Louis at @redflagstlvenue due to the smashed window and messed up ignition in the van. We will post a list of all the gear that we lost shortly in case anyone spots it being sold somewhere in the Indianapolis area.
All our gear and merch was stolen last night!! It’s a major bummer. We unfortunately have to cancel our show at @redflagstlvenue tonight in Indianapolis due to our van being totally fucked by the fucks that robbed us. But we should be back in action for Tuesdays show in Madison Wi! We will post pictures and Info about the stolen gear soon. So peeps in the Indiana area please keep an eye out. We had some cool shit!!”
The band launched a GoFundMe to help replace their gear, which has since exceeded $30,000, and new donations are currently disabled.
On the GoFundMe, the band stated:
“Hey Hey. This is Cancer Bats.
On April 21st after a great show in Indianapolis we woke up to the harsh reality that our van, trailer, merch and gear were all stolen from the hotel that we were staying at. Luckily our van was recovered, but the thieves made off with all our equipment, merchandise, and some personal items. They even stole the catalytic converter off our van. Major bummer and only 4 days into a full month tour in the United States.
We have been a band touring all over the world for 20 yrs now. The fact that this is the first time this has happened to us is truly amazing. We have our health and shows to play and a van to get us there and we are grateful for all of that. But in this robbery we lost a lot of equipment that we hold near and dear to our hearts. Equipment that helped write a lot of our songs. Stuff that has been customised by us over the years. Gear that is not easily replaceable.
We also lost a large order of merchandise. We had ordered enough to make sure that we had plenty for all 27 shows we had on this tour. We only had played 4 so we had a lot of merch in that trailer. (luckily the LPs were in the van and for some reason the thieves didn’t want those bad boys. Total losers!)
We know that these gofundme campaigns can be a little kooky and we don’t want to get more money than we need to replace our equipment. We do have some insurance that will help us out but we are unsure how much will be covered. We are estimating replacing everything will cost us about $30,000 CAN Once this tour is over and we can replace all the stolen gear and find out what insurance will give us if there is left over money we plan to donate the remaining money to get good quality musical instruments to kids living in hard to reach northern communities in Canada.
Stolen Equipment
2009 white Gibson Flying V
2010 red Gibson Flying V
2x Peavey T40 Bass Guitars
1970 Traynor Custom Special
Wounded Paw Siege Engine head
Hiwatt 100w in road case
Orange pedal baby 100w
Marshall 1960 4×12
8×10 Traynor bass cab
2 x Shure Wireless Transmitters / Tuner. 4 x wireless Packs
2 x Enki guitar case
fuzzrocious overdrive pedal x 2
Electro-Harmonix phaser pedal
hush pedal
Dispatch maker reverb pedal
Cry baby wah pedal
2 x ABY pedal
Ernie Ball Expression Pedal
Radial JDI
Yamaha Absolute Hybrid Maple drum kit “silver sparkle” 24×14 – 18×16 – 16×15 – 13×9 in hard shell cases
1 x Ludwig 14×6.5 LM402 Supraphonic chrome, blue olive badge, modern. In SKB case with the name Allan Harding and a 780 phone number on it. 42 strand wires and Evans HD DRY drum head with set list written on it.
1 x Mapex steel black panther snare in bag case
SKB hardware case with
Yamaha hardware:
2 x CS-865 boom stands
1 x HS-850 hi hat stand
1 x SS-850 snare stand
1 x DS-840 throne
1 x CL-945LB Tom arm
2 x Mapex boom stands
1 x Tama double kick Iron Cobra Case with AWAH written in sharpie on it.
1 x Tama 900 speed cobra.
1 x Tama 600 limited edition gold speed cobra
Ludwig Red Atlas molded cymbal bag with backpack straps.
1 x Paiste Signature 22” dimensions wild ride (rare)
1 x 14” zildjian new beat hi hats (modern)
1 x 14” zildjian new beat hi hats (80’s)
1 x22” Sabian HH session Todd Sucherman signature Ride
1 x 21” Sabian AAX xplosion ride
1 x 20” Sabian AAX Heavy Crash
1 x 18” Sabian AAX xplosion China
1 x buttery soft vintage leather stick bag full of ProMark 5B rebound sticks
A ton of extra strings, picks, cables, sticks and drums heads.Massive thanks to anyone who took the time to check this out. If you have a spare couple bucks and can donate that would mean the world to us!!
Much love
Liam, Jaye, Jackie, Al, & Mike”
Remaining Tour Dates:
W/ He Is Legend, Strawberry Girls & Crush++“:
04/23 West Chicago, IL @ WC Social Club
04/25 Colorado Springs, CO @ Black Sheep
04/26 Grand Junction, CO @ Mesa Theater
04/27 Salt Lake City, UT @ Ace High Saloon (Cancer Bats only)
04/29 Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
04/30 Portland, OR @ Dante’s
05/01 Sacramento, CA @ Goldfield Trading Post (Cancer Bats only)
05/02 San Francisco, CA @ Thee Parkside (Cancer Bats only)
05/03 West Hollywood, CA @ Whisky A Go Go
05/04 Las Vegas, NV @ Swan Dive
05/06 Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
05/07 Lubbock, TX @ Jake’s
05/08 Dallas, TX @ RBC
05/09 Houston, TX @ The Secret Group
05/10 Baton Rouge, LA @ Chelsea’s Live
05/11 Pensacola, FL @ The Handlebar
05/13 West Palm Beach, FL @ The Banyan Live
05/14 Tampa, FL @ Orpheum
05/15 Orlando, FL @ Conduit
05/16 Savannah, GA @ Riverside Takeover
05/17 Greenville, SC @ The Radio Room
