Photos like this, posted by Portugal The Man on the band's Facebook page, helped get word out about stolen equipment.
Photo courtesy Portugal The Man

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks for indie band Portugal The Man. It started with a dream-come-true performance at Lollapalooza, was followed by the theft of all the group’s musical equipment and ended in a rarity: Something truly heartwarming happening on the internet.

After a rained-on Aug. 7 set at the Chicago music festival, the members of the Portland, Oregon, band parked their van and trailer, loaded with equipment, near their hotel. The next morning, $80,000 worth of gear was gone, stolen from a Grant Park parking lot.

After hearing of the heist, lead singer and guitarist John Gourley immediately took to Twitter and Facebook to spread the word, asking fans and people in the Chicago area to keep an eye out for the stolen equipment.

“HELP People of Chicago and @Lollapalooza our van & trailer & gear were stolen. Red Ford Van, Black trailer Alaska plates FJH244,” Gourley tweeted from the band’s account.

He posted the same message on Facebook, and followed that up with photos of the van and trailer. At around 6 p.m., police found the van and the trailer, both empty. Gourley posted pictures of the band with the missing equipment on Facebook the next day. On Friday night, he heard that some of their gear had been recovered.

“It really just blew up [on Twitter and Facebook] in a really surprising way,” Gourley said in a phone interview with Wired.com, adding that he believes the buzz on social networks led to calls from TV stations about the theft. “It was so cool for me to see people take it up, that was the reason the networks got involved…. It’s funny that this stuff happens, because now NBC in Chicago is now saying, ‘Pick up the new Portugal The Man record.’”

The band’s savvy use of social networking — and the crime story’s mostly happy ending — stands out at a time when authorities in some cities have blamed instant messaging for fueling riots and pre-emptively shut down cell service to shutter protests.

In Chicago, social networking helped raise the profile of Portugal The Man’s plight. Police said they traced the band’s stolen gear to the home of Juan Ocampo. The 39-year-old Chicago man was charged with felony theft after, prosecutors allege, he bought the band’s equipment for $1,000 at a flea market. Ocampo appeared in court for a bond hearing Tuesday.

The band’s Twitter and Facebook campaign didn’t lead directly to the tips that helped track down Ocampo, police said, but Gourley said he thinks the online messages drew media attention to the theft, which made people more aware of the band’s stolen gear.

‘Because the story was everywhere it helped [the police], I believe.’

“Because the story was everywhere it helped them, I believe,” Gourley said. “Patton Oswalt tweeted about the stuff getting stolen, I thought that was amazing. People that didn’t need to do it were helping out.”

Portugal The Man’s manager was headed to Chicago on Wednesday to take stock of what the police were able to recover (not all the equipment was found), and the band was so grateful for the investigators’ work that they posted on Facebook that they were going to “send a pile of doughnuts over” to the police.

Ultimately, Gourley said, the whole incident was as much about the power of social networking as it was about getting back the gear the band needs to continue making its music.

“I feel bad for all the people who follow us on Twitter who could care less about our gear,” Gourley said, referencing the activity the theft caused in the Twitterverse. “But if you’ve ever been robbed before, if you’ve ever been violated in any way, you know how that feels. It was the worst thing that could happen, but seeing those things, it was exciting to see people do that.”

Portugal The Man’s latest album, In the Mountain in the Cloud, came out in July.