The Riptide Movement's Diary From Delhi

They've spend the past few years successfully conquering Ireland's live circuit so, ahead of their huge Olympia debut in their hometown on November 10, The Riptide Movement decided the time was right to broaden their horizons. It was the Indian subcontinent that was calling, and more particularly, New Delhi. With three gigs on the cards in the Indian capital, the Dublin rockers got their visas sorted (learning from previous US escapades, clearly), bags packed and injections to avoid the dreaded Dengue fever and braced themselves for the trip of their lives. Luckily, drummer Gar Byrne was on hand to document the ensuing madness of that early October week exclusively for Hot Press. You can catch the lads next in the Roisin Dubh, Galway, on Friday Noveber 2. For now, we'll leave the tale of snake charmers, monkeys and smoking children in Gar's capable hands... 
 
Wednesday
We arrive in New Delhi having flown in from Istabul and the city and its manic airport make me think of times when Man United played Galatasaray. The place is heaving with all sorts of people, including chaps holding rifles you’d take an elephant down with. It’s 5am and the whole city is covered in a dense, hazy smoke. Our driver is nowhere to be seen so we talk to a local about a lift to 27 Jor Bagh. The usual, you always get fucked on your first journey, until you grow wise…
 
The first sights of India are absolute insanity with roads like a constant Bastille roundabout in Paris. Horns blaring, tuk-tuks stuffed with locals, monstrous trucks, taxis and bikes all whizzing around. I see a woman getting pulled along the motorway in a wheelbarrow, a pack of dogs roaming freely, people praying on the side of the motorway, doing push-ups, a chap asleep on top of three dogs.
We arrive at our accomodation and I cover myself and my room in DEET bug spray, look for scorpions and spiders, really regretting Googling insects in India before leaving! Our singer Mal [Tuohy] immediately seems more at home, telling us at 6am, "right lads, we didn’t come here to sleep so see you at eleven!" Meanwhile, I bang two Panadol nights into myself with a malaria tablet and everything goes black for a few hours.

 
Thursday
Jump into a tuk-tuk and head for a local market where we get currency changed in a shampoo shop. Seems legit. Then we head for eats in the ropiest place I’ve ever seen. Walking by the kitchen I look inside out of curiosity – sweet Jesus, I’ve seen cleaner portaloos! People’s voices echo around my head as our food arrives. “Salmonella, Delhi belly, Imodium, adult nappies”. Ah, fuck off!! So we go for it onion bhajis and all.
 
We go out looking for a boozer with the band, our tour guide and a driver – yep, six of us! – sardined into a Renault Clio. End up in the worst pub I’ve ever been to. It's a strip club with no women, just us and a group of eye-balling Indians. Have one beer, ask for the bill, get robbed. The bill should have read: 'Five beers, foreign tax, white person's VAT, lovely tourist money percentage – subtotal and final total'. No bars open, no decent food places open, only ones selling grilled labrador. We head back, defeated.

India 1, Riptide Movement 0.

 
Friday

Up at 7am to go to a farm and play polo. The one with the sticks and the horses? Yep. Gerry [McGarry, bassist] is in an absolute bundle in the back of the car and the bang of whiskey off him would put the Soviet Union to shame! On the drive there's utter madness around. Deformed people praying, dirty, battered cars and beat-up trucks and people hanging out of buses. Then in the middle of rush hour traffic, there's a chap riding an elephant down the motorway. Just a normal day in Delhi. So much poverty and so much wealth living side-by-side. Shanty towns beside mansions, people asleep in shopping trolleys. And they’re still so friendly. You look anyone in the eye, smile and wave, and they’ll salute you with "Namaste" and a warm smile.

Saw the poxy farm and polo pitch but who fucking cares? We’re a band not a fucking polo team! Head back into town, get food in McDonalds and the guy behind the counter serves us with Cokes with ice. The voices again. “Not ice, local water, dose of diarrhoea in a cup!”. We ask for no ice and he puts his hand into the cups and scoops them out. Lovely, that’s much better!
 
Sitting at a set of lights all wide eyed and bewildered looking at a kid of about four banging his little hands off the window looking for some cash, Mal puts his hand in his pocket and rolls down the window, hands him 500 rupees, roughly seven euro. If only you could see the face on this kid, it was like he won the golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory! Suddenly it dawns on him how much money it is and he’s gone! The car gets swarmed by kids all banging on the window, in the distance we can see the kid giving the money to his parents, his mother picks him up and twirls him around and his father gets down on his knees to pray to Allah or Ganesh or Shiva! Who knows? But Mal made their day/week/month/year.
 
Get picked up by Katie from the Irish Embassy for our first gig in Café Morrison. We go and get set up sound check, delighted to be playing. Gigging in a different country puts you in a better position then being a tourist, the locals let you in, they treat you better, music connects everyone. Foreign, black, white, gay, straight, religion, it doesn’t matter. Only the song matters. We buy four kurtas traditional Indian gowns worn on special occasions and weddings for the festival on Sunday in a shop next to the venue.
 
Show time. We get on stage to a pretty full bar, not knowing how our music will go down. So we jump into the unknown and open with 'Warming Up The Band'. They go bananas before running amuck for the whole gig.

Saturday
 
Picked up by Katie and brought on a shoot with photographer Angad, an absolute gent who brings us into Connaught Place in Old Delhi. Katie left us with him and within ten seconds some bloke is cleaning Gerry’s ears out with a needle. As you do.
 
Two days before Mal had commented that “these fuckers would live in your ear if they could” and they’re now literally making a living from Gerry’s ears! Old Delhi is in bits, it reminds me of The Book of Eli. 
 
We venture into a sitar shop, where the guy is hand-making an instrument as his daddy before him and his daddy before him and... There’s pictures of John, Paul, George and Ringo standing exactly where we are back in 1967.

Connaught Place is a spot for backpackers and where we see women and white people for pretty much the first time Our tour guide asked what I think of Indian women, I replied, "what fucking women? Where are they?!"
 
When we leave for Kahn market, the tuk-tuk driver dares me to take over, pulls over, and I grab the handle bars. I'm absolutely shitting myself, it's like playing Space Invaders. Traffic moves in and out, no one obeys lights and your horn is more important than your break – they all beep instead of indicating.
 
Later we move to Hotel Amara in GK1 and – JACKPOT! – a room with fans. To quote Gerry: “Jaysus lads, you could fit a rugby team into that shower.” Whatever you do in your own time mate is up to you!
 
Our second gig takes place in The Turquoise Cottage, Gurgoan, about an hour from Delhi. We’re playing with an eight piece traditional Indian band so I wonder how this is gonna go down. We decided over a smoke to play a more rootsy, laid back set, with the likes of 'Thieves In The Gallery,' 'Without You', ditching the likes of 'Cocaine Cowboys'. We have some hassle with gear which was to be expected, we’re in India after all and out of our comfort zone, knowing your gear like the back of your hand and having a tech to change a string or tune a guitar if needed.
 
For some reason the crowd go mental for 'The Rattling Bog'! They lap it up and love the novelty of four Paddys all the way from the land of green hills, pots of gold and P.S I fucking Love You. From one of corner some bird shouts “Up the Dubs!” Small world, but no matter where you go you’ll always meet a Paddy! Afterwards we meet some amazing people, from the Himalayas, Finland, Canada, America and... KIllikeny. Chatted to Indians about Beatles music, Johnny Cash, John Denver and stay till the very death.
 
Sunday
In bits after the previous night, we get a 9.30 taxi into Dili Haat market to buy the girlfriends some presents. Get hassled to bits by the locals and head to a second market Japath Our taxi driver honestly has three thumbs – two on one finger. Safe to say he’s never had that thumb sucked. So we get out and we’re chatting amongst ourselves, and all you hear is the crack of a whip at our feet, some little bollox standing they’re like Indiana Jones. “You buy? Very good price!” Here mate, fuck off will ya?!
 
We go into a huge marketand see loads of lads walking around holding hands, linking arms. Apparently it just means they're friends and homosexuality is frowned upon here. Some difference from Dublin, I can’t imagine Tomo and Rasher walking up Talbot Street holding hands without getting some grief.
 
We sound check for the festival in a room at least twice the size of the Olympia so it was a great practice run for that! Backstage, got into the kurtas walked on stage and the crowd went NUTS! Technically speaking this is the worst gig we’ve ever done, never has so much shit gone wrong, first song JP’s [Dalton, guitar] amp blows, second song Gerry breaks a bass string, third song my snare bursts. Anything that could go wrong goes wrong. But Mal has the crowd in the palm of his hand, he commands them like an army to chant the hook from 'Thieves In The Gallery' and man they scream it. I can barely hear the band from behind the kit. They nearly stormed the stage. After an encore, we sign albums, shirts and bare skin, took photos, got roses from girls. JP gave some chap his t-shirt and he comes up to me going, “Where is Mr Dalton? I need a picture with him, his t-shirt (sniff) it smells like him.”
 
Go for a bite in the Garage Bar, have pitchers of local brew and say goodbye to our new crew. We walk outside to a wild dog fight, literally thirty dogs all barking, going for each other, and running through us to get at each other. Mal leading the way back through our hotel lobby, JP notices that Mal has a hole in the back of his pants you could fit a watermelon into! We're doubled over laughing at it, even the night porter is in stitches. Mal: “Thank Jaysus we were wearing them gowns or the whole crowd would have had even more to cheer for!" Just another night in Delhi.
 
Monday
 
It's 5.30am, my alarm clock is banging from the other side of the room, I’m groggy and my last travel entry is 3.30am. So two hours ago. We’ve had a total of eighteen hours sleep since we left Dublin.
 
On the way to the Taj Mahal, I nod off in the back of the car and wake up at a police checkpoint. At my window is a monkey looking me right in the eye. There’s monkeys everywhere, monkeys on leads, monkeys wearing make up, monkeys on walls, monkeys bashed into the motorway. The driver says not take a picture or you’ll be forced to pay 500 rupees for it. Pricks!
 
En route, we see snake charmers, more monkeys, green rivers of sewage spilling out onto the street with wild pigs bathing in it, men pulling camels on rope, wild dogs and wilder people.
 
When we arrive into Agra, the town beside the Taj Mahal, it's heaving with markets, shanty towns, beggars, cows, bulls, camels, dogs, rats, cats. We’ve seen some mad shit in the past few days but nothing compared to this. Five year-old kids smoking fags, a man taking a shit into his hand! There is no way I can unsee it, absolutely shocking!
 
Our tour guide boards the car and fills us in on some local history, really nice, intelligent, genuine sort of guy. He brings us through the east entrance where us foreigners pay 750 rupees (about €10) for entrance and Indians pay 20 rupees (about 20c) The Taj Mahal itself is flat-out amazing, really a must-see.

I sneak in a Hot Press magazine for some promo pictures! You’re only allowed a phone, camera and bottle of water inside, guards with metal detectors and guns enforce this. Finish the tour go for a bite, spot a snake charmer with a cobra and python, got some pictures, the cobra looked like he wanted to eat his owner and the python looked like he lost the will to live, poor bastard! From there we head back for the hotels, and a 3am call-time to get back to Dublin. To sum up our experience in a paragraph is nearly impossible.

This place is insanity on legs, the people are either filthy rich or devastatingly poor. They are warm, friendly and shockingly honest – there’s no hidden cracks, there’s nothing swept under a rug, this country is what it is. It’s a first world country and a developing world put together for all to see. They see no shame in it, they don’t hide it, they don’t claim welfare, they don’t have benefits. There’s work out there if you want it and they take great pride in it, be it as a road sweeper, a barber, an ear cleaner or a marble maker. I’ve never in my life met friendlier, chattier people, and I’ve never seen so much poverty.
 
As a band it was easily one of the best crowds we’ve ever played to and we were so well looked after that we’re now looking into going back to do a string of college festivals. As a person this place was a real eye opener, far removed from the comfortable bubble of the Emerald Isle. Sadly, six days was not enough to get a real insight into what this country is all about.
 
Goodnight India, you were warm, vibrant, colourful. We’ll be back!

 
Thank You & Credits.
Katie Morrisroe of the Irish Embassy for your kindness, help and amazing "it'll be grand" attitude.
Culture Ireland for the touring support and opportunity.
Mayank Gupta and everyone in ITT for an amazing gig and for bringing us to your incredible country.
Agnad Sodhi for the amazing photographs.
Lars Johnson for the live photographs.
And everyone we met along the way.