British rock band Sports activities Crew was robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight on Monday once they had stopped for espresso in California on the primary day of their US tour.
The band — consisting of frontman Alex Rice, guitarists Rob Knaggs and Henry Younger, bassist Oli Dewdney, drummer Al Greenwood, and keyboardist Ben Mack — touched down in California forward of their first gig in Sacramento on Tuesday.
However after stopping at a Starbucks in Vallejo — almost an hour away from their present — at 9 a.m., the band’s van was ransacked by a gaggle of armed males.
“Just been robbed at gun point 10 minutes into the US tour,” the London-based rockers wrote in an Instagram publish Tuesday.
The band’s tour supervisor bravely confronted one of many robbers, who in flip pulled “out a gun,” in accordance with footage of the ordeal that was filmed from contained in the fuel station
“Man runs in saying some guys are smashing into a van,” they continued, alongside video footage of the theft. “Ran out to try to stop it and find masked guys ransacking the van.”
The “Here’s the Thing” hitmakers stated that native police suggested them to “submit a police report online” as they handled the materialistic losses and a smashed passenger window.
The band claimed the brazen thieves stole their laptops, in-ear displays, cameras, and different private objects, Rice instructed Sky Information.
Sports activities Crew’s devices have been protected and was capable of carry out on the Goldfield Buying and selling Submit in Sacramento Tuesday evening.
“They can take our Nintendo Switches but they can never take our ability to play rock songs about motorways,” they quipped.
“In all seriousness pretty shocking how resigned everyone seemed to be to it. ‘It happens.’”
Recounting the incident hours later, the band’s drummer stated everybody “ran out, shouting.”
“Somebody opened the door and was like, does anybody have a white Sprinter van? Because you’re being robbed right now,” Greenwood instructed BBC Information.
“Lauren, our tour manager, was slightly ahead of me, and somebody else ran past us in the opposite direction, and said, ‘Careful, he’s holding something.’”
“I really thought I was about to watch someone get shot, because it took a while for our tour manager to realize. In the video, you can hear me screaming at her to get down.”
Identified for his or her songs “M5,” “The Drop,” and “Here’s the Thing,” Sports activities Band have been nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2020 — an annual award ceremony that honors the most effective music albums from the UK and Eire.
The band’s debut album, “Deep Down Happy,” shot to the second spot on the UK Albums Chart, serving as a springboard for his or her 2022 album “Gulp!” which reached the highest three within the charts.
