Gang Gang Dance’s tour of Europe has been cut abruptly short after the band lost all its gear in a fire in Amsterdam. A post on the band’s MySpace page details the incident, which occurred after the first date of the tour. According to the post:

“We stored our gear in the club last night and when we arrived there today to pick it up and head off to Brussels for tonights show, we were informed that an electrical fire had occurred in the very room where our stuff was stashed...we arrived on the scene to find every piece of equipment we own scattered out in the parking lot...melted, charred, and still smoldering."

Among the casualties of the fire are a set of memory cards that contained new songs the band members were working on. Let's hope they have that backed up somewhere. But many of the vintage pedals the band uses will most likely be extremely difficult to replace, so even a sizable insurance payout is unlikely to soften the blow.

Gang Gang Dance has had a whole history of tragedy and bad luck that would surely have finished off a lesser band. Singer Nathan Maddox was killed after being struck by lightning in 2002, and former drummer Tim DeWitt was shot in a Grand Rapids bar in 2008. Despite all this, they’ve somehow managed to keep their sense of humor intact, ending the MySpace message by saying “see you when the smoke clears."