Rick Vantour chalks the return of his bass guitar up to social media and Ottawa’s close-knit musical community.
When it was stolen from the Orléans School of Music during a break-in at the height of the pandemic, he thought it was lost forever.
“You don’t expect to get these things back,” said Vantour, who owns the school. “It’s very unique. You don’t see quite this look to most basses.”
The four-string bass has an “awkward, weird shape” and is missing its tone knob, Vantour said, describing it as “road-worn and weary.”
It was special to both to Vantour and the students at the school, many of whom were often introduced to bass via that instrument — a gift to the school when it first opened a decade ago.
The “tobacco-sunburst” coloured guitar was “probably the first bass that most kids had ever played,” he said.
Bass discarded on Westboro lawn
Where the guitar spent the last three years is anyone’s guess.
But last month, Mark Bourgon was on his way home and had just turned onto his street when he spotted the sleek body of the guitar lying on the grass of a nearby lawn.
“I pulled over and I said ‘This is strange,'” he said.
The guitar was dirty, grimy and well-used. A musician himself, Bourgon brought the guitar home and tried to play it, finding out it was still in tune.
He posted two photos of the bass guitar on social media and left the rest to the viral power of the internet. The photos quickly came to Vantour’s attention after they showed up on a local Facebook group.
“Instantly, I said ‘Wait a minute. That looks a lot like my bass guitar that I lost three years ago,” he said.
While Bourgon was a bit skeptical, given the number of people who’d reached out asking to have the guitar, Vantour was the first claiming to be the original owner.
The two met up earlier this month, where Vantour could thank his guitar hero.
“It came back in better shape than when it was lost,” he said.