The British indie band Sports Team was robbed at gunpoint while stopping for coffee at at 9 a.m. on Tuesday at a Starbucks / gas station. They'd played in San Francisco the night before and were in Vallejo, California heading for Sacramento.
Drummer Alex Greenwood told the BBC that they were inside the Starbucks when: "Somebody opened the door and was like, does anybody have a white Sprinter van? Because you're being robbed right now. So we all ran out, shouting.
"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."
The band called the police, who told them to "submit an online report." Greenwood posted a video to Instagram and wrote about what happened: "Lost a lot of personal gear, but they didn’t get the instruments so driving on to Sacramento to play tonight. They can take our Nintendo Switches but they can never take our ability to play rock songs about motorways. In all seriousness pretty shocking how resigned everyone seemed to be to it."
Lead singer Alex Rice told the BBC, "Obviously, if someone pulls a gun, you run for cover. But the thing that struck me about it was the resignation. The people around us weren't very panicked at all. It seemed like a very everyday occurrence."
One of their fans replied on Instagram saying, "The song about this is going to be a good one." Another one wrote: "Glad you're all safe, that's Vallejo for ya!"
Sports Team had just finished a tour of the UK in November, with sold-out concerts in several cities, including Manchester, Nottingham and Leeds.
They'll be playing the Voodoo Room at the House of Blues in San Diego on December 9, El Cid in Los Angeles on December 11, Dante's in Portland on December 13, and Palm Springs on December 15. They'll be in the U.S. until March, then will return to the U.K. for a summer series of concerts. ~Alexandra Heilbron
