Joe Bonamassa has appealed for help finding his bandmate’s missing amp head in Germany.
Josh Smith’s Two-Rock unit was last seen in Leverkusen, Germany, where the group performed with the WDR Big Band on October 15. At some point after the show, it went missing — and Smith would like to get it back.
“Friends, please help us retrieve Josh Smith’s Two-Rock head that was last seen at the WDR Big Band gig,” Bonamassa wrote on social media. “It is in a black Two-Rock road case with the letters JS stencilled on it. Any info please reach out as there is a generous reward for its safe return. Please email rachael@jr-adventures.com if you see it around.”
In a follow-up reply to a commenter, Bonamassa clarified that the amp had not been confirmed stolen.
“It’s not officially stolen. It is missing at the moment,” he wrote, adding that there had been “a lot of audio and broadcast equipment on the night.”
This isn’t the first time Bonamassa has turned to the public for help recovering missing gear. In 2021, he appealed for the return of his Fender Custom Shop ’51 Nocaster, nicknamed “The Bludgeon,” after it went missing in transit while on its way to Guitar World for a review. The guitar was recovered within days, following a social media campaign that drew widespread attention.
Smith has played alongside Mick Jagger, Eric Johnson, Raphael Saadiq and others. His production credits include Eric Gales, Andy Timmons and Joanne Shaw Taylor.
In 2022, Smith told Guitar Player that he’d always wanted to explore big-band music. “I was always curious what it would sound like to do a very traditional Blue Note record, but with me playing like myself over the top of it,” he said.
That curiosity helped inspire Bird of Passage, an album he made with bassist Calvin Turner. “He wrote the record with me and arranged the horns. I’ve done a smaller R&B horn section before, but these arrangements have a vibe like Quincy Jones, Sinatra with Count Basie’s band, and Grant Green or Kenny Burrell with a big band. I wanted to keep it around that 38-minute Blue Note length, and I wanted to mostly play my Telecaster and use my normal tone.”
Smith continues to tour Europe with Bonamassa through November 11.
