Hyram Twang endured more than a week of stress before learning his guitar and other musical equipment were safe and wants to know why nobody could tell him where it went.
He arrived in Australia last Wednesday, eager to perform at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
When he went to pick up his luggage at Sydney Airport his equipment was "missing off the face of the earth".
He had checked microphones, stands and two guitars on to his Jetstar flight from Auckland to Sydney.
One of the guitars was a 26-year-old custom model he planned to pass down to his daughter.
Twang made up half of Melissa and the Dr, a partnership with Melissa Partridge, also of Dunedin.
Her equipment had made it through safely, but he had to get creative to ensure the show could go on.
For the first gig, he borrowed a guitar from a busker,
before managing to secure a loan guitar.
He joked about writing a song called Hello Tamworth, Goodbye Guitar.
On Wednesday evening he received a call to say his luggage had been found, but was offered no explanation as to why it went missing.
"I’m really annoyed I wasn’t given some indication of where they were. What’s really frustrating is that no-one could tell me anything."
He was also concerned about how the guitars were treated by Customs.
"Hopefully they’re not damaged," Twang said.
The luggage was waiting for him in Sydney and he planned to collect it on his way home.
A Jetstar spokesman said it was "very sorry" for the delay in locating the luggage and the inconvenience it caused.
The luggage was found at airport Customs, he said.
