AUSTIN (KXAN) — Emily Wolfe flew to Las Vegas from Austin last week to play guitar with her friends’ band The Gaslight Anthem, opening a show for the Counting Crows. When she opened her guitar case after her flight, she found her custom Epiphone guitar was “in pieces.”
“I mean, my heart sank,” Wolfe said. “I kind of took a minute. I was like, ‘wait a minute, am I in an alternate universe? Is this real? Is this thing actually broken to the point where I can’t play it?'”
Wolfe is an Austin-based musician who’s been touring for over six years. She said she always has her guitars in TSA cases — hardshell, custom-molded flight cases — so she doesn’t have to worry about them getting damaged while flying.
“I packed it in a flight case, like I always do, and it was in perfect condition when I left, and then I opened the case when I got to Vegas, and it was, you know, in pieces,” Wolfe said. “It’s pretty wild, because this happens a lot to musicians, and it shouldn’t.”
Wolfe said ultimately, the airline she flew with ended up agreeing to cover the cost of the damage, which was about $1,300, but that was after the airline denied two claims Wolfe made reporting the damage.
After those rejections, she took to social media.
“[The post] kind of, no pun intended, but took flight, and it kind of spread among all of my musician friends, and then way, way beyond any reach that I thought,” Wolfe said. “And so that kind of caused it to be resolved quickly, which I did not expect.”
Wolfe got a replacement guitar from a shop in Nashville that had one in stock, and Sweetwater, a music gear company, sent her one, too.
Because she now has an extra, she’s planning to pay it forward.
Wolfe is playing a benefit concert for Queer Liberation Network at Empire Garage on Sept. 6, where the extra guitar will be raffled off. QLN is hoping to “build on the momentum” of a recent online auction, Lit for Queer Liberation, that raised $23,000, which will support the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s wild because, you go through like, a low with, ‘Oh, my God, my guitar is my identity, and it’s broken. What do I do?’ And then the high highs of, here’s some help by the community. And, I don’t know, it’s really moving,” Wolfe said. “And I would love to pay that forward to other musicians too, and just keep it going. You know, we got to take care of each other.”
Wolfe said that she didn’t think the issue would’ve been resolved as quickly as it had been if she didn’t have the following she did on social media, and ultimately, she wants to use her experience to push for better protections and clear policies for traveling musicians and their gear.
“It’s hard to travel as a musician, and I wish it wasn’t like that, but is. It’s really tough, you know, to figure ways around these things,” Wolfe said.
“Because, our gears are our livelihood, and one mishandled instrument can mean a canceled show or tour,” she said. “And I’m grateful to still be performing, like I’ll be playing music forever, and yeah, I just hope that this is something that airlines can improve.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
