Scrawl like an Egyptian

Guitarist and singer Bryan Adams has a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of bringing music equipment into Egypt, after customs officials wrote all over his vintage Martin acoustic.

Adams was in Egypt for a concert at the Giza pyramids, and posted a picture of the vintage Martin acoustic guitar on his Instagram account.

To his horror, he discovered a number and an illegible word in Arabic had been written in green ink on the mahogany instrument’s side.

“Airport customs graffiti on my 1957 Martin D-18 from Egypt. Back to the luthier bryanadamsgetup,” Adams wrote on Instagram, referring to his latest album, Get Up.

“We almost didn’t get the equipment into the country, and when we did it was all marked like this,” he wrote in a Facebook message. “There were absolutely no apologies.”

A customs official said instruments were marked with serial numbers, although usually with stickers. Regarding the ink, he suggested: “Maybe it wasn’t us?”

Some sort of payback for Everything I Do?