Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Band plays popular song, fan likes popular song and wants to sing along, fan drunkenly goes on stage – but then gets rocked in the face by singer, a grown-ass man with a pink mohawk, and proceeds to receive kicks in the face while he’s down for no apparent reason. Funny? No, we don’t think so either.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Band plays popular song, fan likes popular song and wants to sing along, fan drunkenly goes on stage – but then gets rocked in the face by singer, a grown-ass man with a pink mohawk, and proceeds to receive kicks in the face while he’s down for no apparent reason. Funny? No, we don’t think so either.

TMZ reports a NOFX fan during a show in Australia on Tuesday night got a straight boot to the dome after singer “Fat” Mike Burkett sucker punched him down. The event is, obviously, on viral record and immediately circulated through the web upon release with mixed response.

The singer had been complaining of neck issues through the night and spent the better part of the set getting pelted with shoes and beer bottles. The drunken fan eventually found his way on stage and tried to get to the microphone for a sing-along with Burkett. It was almost like it was a punk rock show or something.

Even still, most people who have seen the video can expect the first swing-around hit out of reactive consciousness, but a size-nine Skecher (we’re assuming) to the face is seemingly uncalled for. Dick.

If this were an isolated incident coming from the controversial lead-singer we’re sure that this would blow over quickly with the subsequent apology on Twitter being enough to quell the masses. Unfortunately for Fat Mike, he’s just a dick, and consistently finds himself doing one stupid thing or another to piss people off.

It’s punk rock, we suppose, but this isn’t 1999 anymore, and doing dipshit things for attention isn’t anyone’s bag. It’s like Justin Beiber syndrome from a man well beyond his time.

Let’s take for instance his 2010 performance at South by Southwest when he performed as his alter ego “Cokie The Clown”. In it he sung heartbreaking tunes with an acoustic guitar and told incredible stories which included not helping a suicidal roommate, milking a mother to make a White Russian and witnessing a rape while doing nothing. By his own admission it was a show to garner the most negative responses he could get.

About the performance, he told AltPress.com, “I didn’t go out there to entertain the crowd. I wanted to do something that these people hadn’t seen before. I wanted to do the exact opposite of what everyone expected. I wanted to touch people and super-bum them out.”

The “performance” was hardly the worst of it. Towards the end he offered up front row fans shots of tequila. These were the same fans who had been waiting for hours in line to see him and most likely have bought at least one of his albums or overpriced t-shirts. He revealed later on he had pissed in the tequila bottle earlier in the evening. Nobody was impressed, except for “Cokie”.

Even if we were to dismiss both of these ridiculous things he’s achieved over the years, we can’t help but to feel a certain kind of loathing for the man while watching NOFX documentaries. Everything from complaining about room temperature in third-world countries to getting upset when fans spit on him (as if he somehow shouldn’t expect it by now?), the guy really gets his garments in a knot. Every. Time. 

Sure, getting spit on and having bottles winged at you for three decades probably gets under your skin at some point, but we’re sure that everyone’s mothers have told them at least once, “You’ve made your bed, now you lie in it.”

A subjectively awful existence, as it seems Fat may be making up for, still doesn’t give anyone the right to kick a fan while he’s obviously down for the count. Should the fan have expected it? Sure, it’s a punk rock show and shit happens. He grabbed the neck of someone who was injured and he acted accordingly. It was a bad move by both.

But a kick to the face? It went too far. The overstepping of boundaries is just what we’d expect out of Fat Mike though, and amplifies his ongoing character just as we’d expect out of him. The apology later on Twitter towards the fan is credible, as half-assed as it is, but reminds us of when schoolyard boys belligerently scuffle and are forced to make up so the bomb dropped on their parents later isn’t as loaded.

If nothing else, we don’t feel as guilty about downloading NOFX’s entire catalog from Napster that one time (allegedly). Conscience clear!