Punk rock is an unusual genre. Punk shows can be exhilarating, enthralling, chaotic, confrontational and offensive. Last night at the House of Blues, it was all of those and less.

I've been going to see punk bands for more than three decades and I thought I had just about seen and heard it all. Then I was exposed to Fat Mike, singing bassist for L.A.'s legendary punk outfit NOFX. These guys have been going at it since 1983 and they have made some decent money and some decent music along the way, but last night they were the antithesis of punk. NOFX have become a caricature of a punk band. Perhaps they have been that all along. Now, it's Fat Mike with his silly blue Mohawk shouting at some guy in the balcony, calling him a "fucking faggot" who was acting like a "prison pussy." As I was being tortured by NOFX, I thanked the punk gods for opening bands. All three, on this particular evening, saved the show.

Was this what punk rock has become? I was reminded of that horrible Mott the Hoople album, the one made after Ian Hunter had left the band. It was called Shouting and Pointing and that was NOFX last night. It was Fat Mike and crew playing some decent songs and then berating some guy for being Filipino, or as Fat Mike put it, "not a real Asian."