Over nearly two decades since the band's formation, lead vocalist of The Riptide Movement Malachy Tuohy still feels as emotional performing songs off Getting Through as he did when the iconic album first dropped in 2014.

“When you're playing live, you connect with the songs again just like the first time you wrote them or the first time you recorded them,” he says. “You feel that connection with it and the audience does as well. Playing them live is always a great experience.”

Following the opening show of the 10-year-anniversary tour of Getting Through in Whelan’s last Friday, the frontman expresses his eagerness at performing the album in full for the first time in years.

“We’re really excited, really looking forward to it. We have four albums and an EP released at this stage, so a lot of our gigs can be two, two and a half hours, and we still don't get to play all the songs,” He says.

“This tour is going to be great because we're going to get to play the whole album from start to finish. And there's a few songs there that we wouldn't have played live, maybe since the album was released, like ‘Across the Water’, ‘Sycamore Tree’ and ‘How Can I Let You Go’ that wouldn't have been on the set list for the last few years.”

“They're the songs that are further back in the album and they'd be slower, intimate songs, so sometimes they can be hard to put in the set because it can kind of take the flow out of the gig. But the other night, we had three of them in, and it was nice 'cause it was halfway through the set. We played just on acoustic guitars so it was really, really stripped back.

"The audience seemed to love that, and we loved it too,” he adds.

The Riptide Movement at the Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre. Copyright Trevor McGrath.

When speaking about the No.1 album’s debut in the Irish charts, Malachy reflects on the making of the album, a time when the band had a free week in the middle of their tour and didn't fancy wasting an opportunity.

“We had no intention of starting with an album at that stage,” he reveals. “It's funny how Getting Through came together because we just finished Keep On Keeping On, and we were on a tour across the Netherlands, Germany and Austria when we got a call from the promoter telling us a few of the gigs were being cancelled, but we were already out there at that stage. We thought ‘well, we have all the equipment here and there's a few dates about to be pulled, we have a week before the next show ...’

“So we pulled into this place called Winterburg in Germany, got a house there, loaded all our equipment into it and wrote a good part of Getting Through during that week. We finished off the tour and got back to Ireland. Then we went down to Louisburgh, finished writing the album over another couple of weeks, and recorded it in Grouse Lodge.”

The singer hinted at new music from the band’s upcoming album being released before Christmas - “we tried out a few of the new songs on Friday, and they went down really, really well” he assured me - which will be the bands sixth studio album, following on from their most recent single ‘Fall A Little More In Love’ released in 2020.

When making the new album, The Riptide Movement would draw inspiration from personal experiences, good and bad, throughout the songwriting process.

“Some songs kind of write themselves, which was ‘All Works Out’, and it's probably one of our biggest songs. Sometimes the best songs do almost write themselves, they kind of flow. But you can overdo a song. You're just so fixated on the song, and you know how good it can be, that maybe you try too hard,” Malachy says.

“Any songwriter or artist would probably agree that the creative process can always be a struggle, but that's where the good stuff comes from, you know? You have to try and overcome that struggle, that's where the good songs are.”

The Irish rock band have garnered a name for themselves as thrilling live performers. What show has been a career highlight for the band?

“The one that stands out to me, and I can speak for the whole band on this one, is the Electric Picnic main stage in 2015,” He states. “The album had just been released a year before, and ‘All Works Out’ was massive at that stage, the album went number one, by [Electric Picnic] it had been out for pretty much a year.

"I don't think we had played to a crowd as big ever, it was between 30 and 40 thousand people there, and everyone knew the songs. It was just an amazing gig for us all, it would be a massive highlight for the band.”

The Riptide Movement, Electric Picnic 2015.

Between playing the main stage at huge festivals like Electric Picnic and Glastonbury, and touring the US and Europe, The Riptide Movement have come a long way since their beginnings as buskers on Grafton street, which the frontman fondly looks back on.

“There’s something great about [busking] because some people are just buzzing around town, relaxing and enjoying the day … and would stop and listen to a band. But equally, there’s people that are rushing from A to B, and if they get drawn in, stop and then buy a CD? I think that's just amazing. They were in a rush someplace, and they ended up getting stopped by the music and getting carried away in it,” Malachy says.

“Even at the gig on Friday in Whelans,” He adds, “just before we went on, we went out to say hello to a few family friends, and there was an Italian couple that came over and they said  ‘the first time we've seen this was on Grafton street, and we've been following ever since’. That’s pretty cool.”

The Riptide Movement Getting Through 10-year-anniversary tour dates:

28 June - Sea Church, Ballycotton, Co. Cork
29 June - The Prince of Wales Hotel, Athlone
12 July - Kavanaghs Bar & Venue, Portlaoise
19 July - Mary Mullens Bar, Galway
26 July - Dolans Warehouse, Limerick
27 July - Mike the pies, Listowel
23 August - Doolin, Co. Clare
24 August - 10 Bridge Street, Killorgan

Tickets are available here.