A UK musician named Matt Grant found himself at the wrong end of an unfortunate situation recently: He was busking in Edinburgh, Scotland, as he does regularly, when somebody decided to smash his guitar. He started a GoFundMe campaign to help replace the damaged instrument and wrote, “Today the worst thing that could have happened happened. Someone came up while I was busking and smashed my guitar. The lady was a drunk. Often I don’t rise to people coming up and talking nonsense but this lady was pushing it too far. She was in my face swearing and shouting at me. I told her to go away and she wasn’t having any of it. She grabbed my guitar and smashed it over the ground. I got grabbed by The police intervened she was arrested. But now I’m out of a guitar to busk with for the time being.”
Grant didn’t need the money from the GoFundMe, though (he raised £4,196, about $5,500): When Jack White heard about Grant’s story, he decided to help by buying him a new guitar worth £3,600 (about $4,700).
The incident occurred on October 20, and after that, White’s management contacted Grant. White apparently spotted the page and felt bad about what happened, so he found the music store Grant shopped at and arranged to pay for whatever six-string Grant wanted.
Grant told the Daily Mail, “It’s just amazing. I was in the guitar shop and the manager had been trying to get hold of me all day on the GoFundMe page, but I had closed it as I already had more than enough donations in. He said: ‘Jack saw what happened, bud, and he wants to get you a guitar.’ I said I already had one now because I had been in and bought my new acoustic one and he said, ‘Keep that one and get another one. Jack really wants to help.’ I was like a kid in a sweetie shop, going around trying out all the guitars until I picked the one I wanted.”
Grant went with a Fender Stratocaster and wrote on Instagram, “Absolute once in a million lifetimes thing happened today and I cannot thank Jack enough for his absolute generosity. Apparently he saw what happened and hit up his manager just this morning, who then amazingly tracked me down to the guitar shop just in time for me to walk out with this absolute beauty. Thanks Jack. I’d love to thank you personally one day, you’re a legend. ”
Find more of Grant’s posts about the situation below.