Music

NOFX singer makes it up to the kid he kicked in the face

by Tyler Munro

Last week Fat Mike drew the ire of the Internet when a video of him kicking a young Australian stage invader square in the face surfaced online. He had a sore back and neck, and when Alex Medak wrapped his arms around the NOFX frontman he was met with a shove and a kick to the mouth.

Fat Mike was quick to apologize to Alex Medak, the fan who chewed his boot that night. Fat Mike offered to buy him a beer, the fan took him up on it, and what happened next was a rare nice gesture from the often angry pop-punk icon.

Medak showed up to share (half of a) beer with Fat Mike and got a kick-commemorating t-shirt signed by the band.

And then Fat Mike let him return the favour… sort of.

“Thanks for being so cool, that was really fucked. You took it really… good. That was a good kick to the face,” he said to the fan. “I thought it would be fair if you wanted to kick me back…”

Lucky for him, guitarists El Hefe and Eric Melvin convinced the kid to take his boot off and kick him in a slipper instead.

Then he brought the kid up on stage during the show to sing “Linoleum,” the lyrics to which he admittedly whiffed on. Hey, it’s still better than a kick to the teeth.

All is well that ends well, but it’s important to remember both sides of the story with stuff like this.

While the stage is for performers, not fans, punk shows encourage a barrier-less show with plenty of stage dives. If you’re the fan, maybe don’t try and bear-hug the singer mid-set. And if you’re the singer, maybe toss him off and let security handle it from there; a wound up boot to the brains is maybe a bit excessive. [h/t TMZ & Consequence of Sound]