SECOND WIND:
Social media and a dash of serendipity reunite a musician with his saxophone
When musician Nick Becker’s beloved sax was stolen from his car he thought it was gone forever. But thanks to an incredible turn of events, social media put to excellent use, the coming together of his fellow Saffers and a dash of serendipity, he was reunited with his instrument! This is his feel-good story.
‘The whole thing started on Valentine’s Day, 2015. I’m a saxophonist and we played a Valentine’s gig at the Waterfront that day. Afterwards, I went to my then-girlfriend’s house on Kloof Street, parked my car downstairs, and quickly ran up to put the flowers I’d given her in a vase. We were upstairs for less than five minutes. When we came back down, the window was smashed and my saxophone was gone. I drove around for a while looking for anyone carrying a sax, but obviously that didn’t work. And of course, the whole Valentine’s thing was ruined; I was in no mood to celebrate. My sax is a vintage instrument with mother-of-pearl detailing – it’s worth about R65 000. Besides, it had huge sentimental value – it had been with me my whole life. I was so afraid that whoever had taken it would melt it down for scrap metal because it’s brass.
I had recently started journalling my thoughts first thing in the mornings, so the next morning when I woke up I decided to write about how I was feeling. I couldn’t find anything to write on so I started writing on my Facebook wall, spelling out what my instrument had meant to me and how distraught I felt at having lost it. In the music industry, when someone’s instrument gets stolen they’ll often post the serial number, when it happened and where it happened – just in case. But nine times out of 10 they never see it again. Anyway, I added the serial number to my post and created a hashtag on a whim: #PayBackTheSaxophone. (The #PayBackTheMoney hype in parliament was at its peak at the time.) I didn’t for a moment think I was going to get my sax back; I was just venting, really.’
My girlfriend and I also decided to make posters – we stuck hundreds of them up in the area where it happened, each with little strips that you could tear off containing my contact number. Two hours in, having now flyered the whole of Kloof Street, the whole thing started snowballing. I was getting concerned phone calls from people who had seen my post, asking me if I’d seen anyone and promising to spread the word.
Six hours later, a big marketing company called and said they wanted to do a viral marketing campaign for me – free of charge. They said they would get in touch with me the following morning. Someone else phoned me, offering to let me use a saxophone they had lying around. I appreciated the offer but declined: I was still hoping against hope to get mine back. Within 16 hours of my post, 5FM, Jacaranda FM and News24 had all picked it up and it went viral. In the end it was shared 3000 times; I don’t know how many people saw it.
Usually when an instrument gets stolen, the first thing you do is contact Cash Crusaders. But every time I phoned one of these places and said, “Hi, I’m looking for a stolen saxophone,” they would say, “Sir, we’ve already had 20 calls about that.” It was incredible – people were going nuts looking for that saxophone with me.
The following morning there were posters on the highway about ‘the curious case of the missing saxophone’; the Maverick’s plane that flies over Cape Town even contacted me and said they would create a banner about it – people were serious about helping! When the marketing company phoned me again the next morning they said, “Listen, we can’t do more for you than this has done for itself.”
I made a point of responding to every message, comment, post and tag related to mine. I didn’t sleep; I replied to every single person – and not just a generic reply. I genuinely tried to engage with everyone.
Two days later...
Forty-eight hours later I got a message from a guy called Jai Reddy. It said: “Give me a call, I have your saxophone. I’ll explain everything.” Naturally, I was reluctant to believe it as people get scammed all the time, but I gave him a call. He’s a saxophone player himself, and he was driving down the road when he saw a homeless guy carrying a saxophone on his back. Out of interest, he stopped and asked him about it. The guy said he’d bought it off someone else and wanted to get rid of it. Jai asked how much he wanted for it and the man replied, ‘R450.’ Jai bought it on the spot.
A sax player himself, Jai recognised the value of my sax the moment he opened the case. He phoned his son and told him: “I just bought a R65 000 sax for R450!”
His son had been following my story on social media, so the first thing he said was, “Dad, you need to read out the serial number to me.” The numbers matched. When Jai got home, his son showed him the story on Facebook and they contacted me immediately.
I went over to his place – it was just down the road from me – and met up with Jai, who I recognised from the Cape Town music scene. He gave me my sax back. I was ecstatic and extremely grateful. I had R25 000 that I was offering as a reward, but Jai wouldn’t take it. He said to me: “Dude, don’t worry, we have to help each other in this life.”
I insisted on repaying him in some way, but he just said: “I like Jameson, just buy me a bottle of Jameson.”
I’m not sure why my post went viral, but I suspect it had something to do with the way I wrote it. Losing my sax felt like I’d lost a loved one and that really resonated with people.
Jai and I keep in touch. We’ve had a few whiskies together, I’ve seen him at gigs… we’ve sort of become friends through this. I wrote a follow-up post on FB to let everyone know that I’d been reunited with my sax and to thank Jai. At the time he’d just started a self-funded outreach programme called Pelican Paddleboarding Club, teaching underprivileged kids in Hout Bay to paddleboard. I shared his business info as well so people could get involved – they really wanted to. I love that it had a positive knock-on effect for him.
At the time, with #PayBackTheMoney going on in politics, there was a lot of tension among people. We were all quite disconnected and there was a lack of solidarity all round. But I saw first-hand how people from different backgrounds and ethnicities could come together to help another person on a basic human level. I had phone calls from Cape Town gangsters, a private detective in Joburg, Afrikaans farmers from far away – reuniting me with my saxophone was the elastic band to draw everyone closer.’
‘I had phone calls from Cape Town gangsters, a private detective in Joburg, Afrikaans farmers from far away – reuniting me with my saxophone was the elastic band to draw everyone closer.’