Black Lips Flee From Indian Police During Tour

Not only did they have to end their latest tour early, but dayum, these boys are in trouble. According to NME, Black Lips were recently obliged to cancel their tour in India because they were forced to escape the country as they were being chased by the police. They were originally scheduled to a seven-date tour there.

Now, we’ve heard numerous stories about one band member being charged with crimes, but an entire band? This is supposedly how it all went down:

The trouble started when guitarist, Cole Alexander, stripped and jumped into the crowd at a show in Chennai’s Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall (Friday, January 23rd). Then according to an Indian blog, Indiecision.com, he “proceeded to get back on stage and make out with the other band members.”

The tour promoters were so upset, they notified the Tamil Nadu Police, informed the band that the rest of their shows were pulled, and told them that they would soon be arrested. For clarity, Black Lips issued a state via Vice Website (their label):

They [the promoters] tried to get security to restrain us until the Tamil police arrived. We locked the door while they were kicking and banging on it. Meanwhile, we slipped out the other emergency exit.

Then after driving ten hours to get out of Tamil’s authorities, they almost got into more trouble.

When we got to the next hotel a mysterious man and someone who worked for our Indian booking agency tried to run off with our passports,” the statement said. “That’s when our VBS.tv documentarian Rob went postal on them. We surrounded them until they gave back our passports. After that we booked the first flight to Berlin.

However, even after all of this, the band had this to say:

For future reference, we really enjoyed the people of India and we hope western rock bands will be able to tour there in the future.

Do you think it was right for the Black Lips to make a run like that?