"Coming up on Backstage Passport." "Here's the truck advertising the show right now..." "Counterfeit tickets should be pretty easy to catch at the door, no?" "You're bigger than Bruce Springsteen here." "They've never seen a crowd like this before." " I had a great time." " Then go to fucking sleep!" "I AM!" "We're NOFX Screwing up since 1 983" "But these days we've got mortgages and families" "So we're going on a sketchy tour No country is too obscure" "We're gonna drink and golf and fight and snort" "We're NOFX This is Backstage Passport" "Over the years we've played a lot of bizarre places." "We just got done playing Japan  Singapore, and those were pretty much a cakewalk." "'NOFX everybody!" "'" "But now we're going into weird Asia, countries where American bands just don't play, and we're not really sure how the crowds are going to react to us." "This is officially our first Muslim country that we've ever been to." "I didn't know this was a Muslim country." "You do now." "Hefe has no idea where we're going." "There's always the potential for him to get us in trouble, not knowing the rules, or not knowing who he's offending." "Ha Salaam aleichem, my brother." "Yeah." "Look at this guy!" "In 24 years, NOFX has never played in front of a Muslim crowd, we've never been to a Muslim country." "There must be like a thousand people here!" "We're known to be an anti-religion, anti-god band." "I don't know how Muslims are gonna take it." "[SINGS] We want all hookers and comedians" "[SINGS] nihilists are welcome too" "[SINGS] No longer svelte" "[SINGS] They gotta punch new holes in the Bible belt" "I was having a great time at the show, it was a really rocking show... until some kid in the pit takes his scarf off his head, swings it around, throws it, El Hefe catches it." "I was like, 'hey, cool.' Put it on." "I guess they want me to wear it." "We must all achieve peace." "We must all achieve peace." "World peace." "Two Jews and a Mexican taunting the Muslim crowd...." "Might not be good." "He says don't wear this." "MIKE:" "Don't wear it?" "Are we being disrespectful?" "There's like one Muslim guy in the audience that's pissed off." "He has something to say..." "Please don't wear that, because this is wearing by the good people in the religion Islam..." "I was definitely nervous at that point because I didn't know what he was saying," "I didn't know what they were saying back to him..." "Okay!" "New rules..." "I don't know the rules." "Let me ask you this can we do a song by another band, is that okay?" "Is being a lesbian illegal here, too?" "Hefe managed to piss off some Muslims by wearing a towel around his head." "We've done a lot of shows, in a lot of countries and we've never had any shout outs to Allah before." "Out here we're finding things are a little bit different now because these people are weird." "Definitely 'House of Flying Daggers' shit right here." "The only other band I've heard of that's played here they told us was the Slackers  Ensign." "Here's the truck advertising the show right now..." "No alcohol allowed in here." "MIKE:" "Really?" "RUGLY:" "Yeah." "Very strict." "What?" "We want to give the kids some bottles of booze, so they can have as much fun as we're having." "[SINGS] Go to work wastedI" "[SINGS] Go to work bombed" "[SINGS] you gotta pull a shot before you start the job" "[SINGS] I wanna operate heavy machinery" "[SINGS] I want to watch online pornography" "Thank you, goodnight." "Bye, bye..." "I had a fucking good time." "See you later." "Show was great, everything was super fun, and then this annoying girl got backstage somehow." "Hi..." "NOFX?" "Oh you're NOFX too?" "No, I just met you, I didn't know who you guys were." "No, what's your name?" "Anita." "I didn't hear about you guys until tonight." "Girls get backstage sometimes and they hit on you." "And uh, I know how to deal with it." "Do you have a family?" "Yeah, a two and a half year old daughter, and a wife that I've been married to for 14 years." "Okay... and you love her and all that stuff..." "And I've never cheated on her." "Never have." "She was on him like white on rice." "She wanted to have a good time and Mike was like you know, forward point blank like, 'look, I'm married, I got a wife, and I want nothing to do with it.'" "How would you feel if I told you you'd have a good time, if you come out with me" "I'll show you a good time." "No, I'm married and I don't fuckin' hang out with chicks to have a good time." "I'm not gonna fuck him." "I'm not gonna fuck him." "I thought I was being clear and polite and just saying 'you know, I'm married I and don't want to hang out' and she, she went nuts." "What is this Mr. Evian?" "What is this shit?" "Evian dude, you don't back Evian?" "What is this bullshit?" "The Freeze?" "What is this bullshit?" "What other bullshit are you fucking wearing?" "What is this, Bouncing Souls?" "What the fuck is that?" "Bananas!" "I'm sorry I'm just trying to open this guy's, I'm just trying to show him a good time." "Hi, I've been in Seoul for a fucking goddamn year I can have a good time." "I had a great time tonight!" "I had a great time." "Then go to fucking sleep!" "I am!" "Bye!" "It was fucking very nice meeting you Mr. fucking Big Mike." "Big Mike, Big Mike..." "It was a pleasure, asshole!" "From what we've heard, no U.S. punk band has been to Taiwan and we really have no idea what to expect." "This ought to be good." "When I walk into the show at Taiwan, it's pretty obvious the punk show is going to be more of a flop show." "There's 25 people here." "I counted them." "25 tickets got sold... so yeah, you know, hopefully we can get up to 30, and then we've got a punk rock show." "Yeah." "So, do we have any...do we have any big NOFX fans here tonight?" "The show was really small, but there was still a bunch of people that felt the need to stage dive." "An empty room... it's not gonna go well." "There was some old guy that got on the stage at one point, he's like, 'here I come...'" "'uuuh'" "Once this big, old, 60-year-old man went for it, that was the pinnacle of weirdness." "Well, another success." "Another successful show." "We got paid enough to afford that bottle of wine." "More actually, that plus probably the meal." "After that show, I'm thinking about, maybe I'll start doing landscaping around LA." "It was, you know, the smallest show we've done in 1 5, 16 years so..." "Show was a low turnout, it was really weird energy, and now we're going to China." "We're starting to get a little concerned." "You know, yeah, we knew we were going to spend a lot of money on this tour but when nobody shows up it just seems kind of pointless." "Where are ticket sales?" "You're bigger than Bruce Springsteen here." "I love China." "We're starting to hit the second half of the Asian tour." "The show we just played in Taiwan was the smallest show we've done in 1 5 years." "And now we're going to China." "One of the reasons we really want to play there is because no U.S. punk band has ever been allowed to play in mainland China." "We have a press conference in front of 60 different magazines  newspapers." "Should be crazy." "So right when we get in we have the biggest press conference we've ever had in our career." "Mao watches!" "Sixty for two?" "Okay, three for a hundred." "Ha... showed her." "Sixty for two." "I got three for a hundred." "Ha...idiot." "Welcome to Beijing, Mike!" "Thank you!" "The purpose of the interview is to sell tickets, cause they don't believe we're really here." "This is to show that we're really here." "Weird." "We're doing a press conference in front of 200 million Chinese people so I felt it was prudent to moon them." "MIKE:" "You want to see my ass?" "We rarely do interviews so doing a press conference is just strange, but we need turnouts or else we lose all the way around." "And now, we're meeting with the promoter for the first time for dinner." "What is that, abalone?" "Abalone." "I think it's a good example of a food that is not good but very expensive because its rare." "We go to the THE best hot pot in Beijing..." "Finally... a place we can call home." "So we meet the promoter, we thought it was odd that he took us for dinner in the KKK room..." "So where are ticket sales?" "Probably, I'm pretty sure...where are ticket sales?" "You're in charge of ticket sales." "KENT:" "What's the number?" "Oh... 600." "That's a crazy amount." "Most people always buy on the day, so it'll definitely sell out." "I will be more confident selling tickets for a NOFX show than a Bruce Springsteen show." "You're bigger than Bruce Springsteen here." "You will get a bigger crowd than Bruce Springsteen, here, I can guarantee..." "I love Bruce Springsteen, that's not a dis on him." "MELVIN:" "Wait are we talking about the same Bruce Springstein?" "I'm thinking, 'man... the guy is just shoveling a giant load of bullshit into our hot pots...'" "They go on and on about the counterfeit tickets and that's just how it is in China." "There'll be people selling tickets like 1 /5 of the price, 1 / 10..." "You don't know how they get it." "If it's a concert, or a football match." "They do everything." "I love China." " See you tomorrow." "Yeah, thanks for dinner. " "This is what a smart person would do." "They charm you with dinner, and then they don't pay you fucking shit at the show." "I'm going to have a conversation at 12:30 with Shan Wei and uh," "I think I might be able to get my message across." "Dinner pretty much convinced us that the promoters were shysters but we had to just put that behind us and go climb the Great Wall in the morning." "Last one to the top's a rotten egg." "Uh...seizure." "When we got to the top of the wall, it was kind of exciting." "It made everyone want to call home." "I'll say goodnight and I love you from the top of the Great Wall." "Hi baby, I'm calling you from the top of the Great Wall of China." "Hello?" "Hey mama!" "How are you?" "I'm on, I can barely hear you, but I'm on the top of the Wall." "I have to stop and think you know." "I do it once in a while." "I'll be somewhere and I just sorta start thinking about some place we were twenty years ago, doing what we were doing, and now it's not really that much different." "I guess that's really the most exciting part about going to places we haven't been before is we don't know what to expect, we don't know what its going to be like and that's what it was like in those days, too." "Everything new was just something new waiting ...right around the corner." "So here we are, still living that." "The Great Wall was so cool but we had to get back to the venue and start dealing with hopefully getting paid for the show." "I want to talk about money." "I want to discuss the deal because I mean you're covering all these expenses, and this 50,000 for the venue?" "What does that include?" "That's unheard of." "Typically we're looking to walk away with half of the money that came through the door." "Somewhere like Beijing, where we've never been and no one else has ever been, we've got no history so who knows?" "Maybe the rent is 50,000 dollars for the that venue and maybe monkeys DO fly out of my butt." "If you're paying this much to a venue, there should be no way anyone can get in free." "So they should not, no one should be getting in free." "You know what I mean?" "You understand?" "They've never seen a crowd like this before, everyone's trying to scam counterfeit tickets to get in." "Counterfeit tickets should be pretty easy to catch at the door, no?" "Not the way the Chinese do it." "So here we are in China, our first and likely ONLY time in China, and the promoters are sketchy at best." "I will be more confident in selling NOFX tickets than a Bruce Springsteen show." "They go on and on about the counterfeit tickets that's for sure just a scheme to rip us off." "If you're paying this much to a venue there should be no way anybody can get it free." "No U.S. punk band has ever been allowed to play in mainland China." "We actually got permission from the government." "I want to play a great show tonight." "It's kind of a historic show for them, and for me." "People are still arriving." "It's good, it's good Shan Wei ..." "Anticipiation." "Everyone's trying to scam counterfeit tickets to get in, people don't have enough money and they've never seen a crowd like this before." "It's really the security, I mean they're not really trained, for one." "They're not really trained to notice what's counterfeit, what's not." "I don't really see why it'd be any different than anywhere else, but..." "It's part and parce!" "of the ticketing cu!" "ture in China." "Every event we do...its always the same." "Counterfeit tickets should be pretty easy to catch at the door, no?" "Not the way the Chinese do it..." "KENT:" "Really?" "Yeah." "NOFX!" "NOFX!" "The cards are all in his hand, he's gonna give us what he's gonna give us." "And we're either going to leave happy or we're going to leave totally fucked." "Beijing, China!" "Tokyo had 18,000 people, but this show is funner than the Tokyo show." "Show is amazing but the funniest thing was the kids didn't really understand the concept of stage diving." "Hey, what are you doing, guy?" "This is OUR time!" "They waited for the song to be over, and then they got on stage and jumped off." "Okay, obviously you Chinese guys don't know... you dive DURING the song!" "Okay, everybody you have no idea what we're doing here." "Okay, everybody you have no idea what we're doing here." "They've never stage dived before, and we got to show these kids how to stage dive badly..." "You see?" "How people stage dive?" "You see?" "I think the kids finally learned how to stage dive badly, which is all you really want." "One kid takes a bandana, puts it over his face, and runs blindly into the crowd." "It felt like a 1 982 punk show, where people had never stage dived before and they were just going for it." "And it was amazing." "Every time someone got on stage, they were like 'oooh, oooh, ooooh.'" "It's historic, it's the only word that comes to mind." "This was the best show we ever had in Beijing." "The best." "I'm glad the show was awesome and exciting but I'm pretty focused now on trying to get some money out of it." "You're telling me 400 people got in on bootleg tickets and guest list?" "No, no, no, not 400 people." "And that's a minimum." "I could see that being 1500 people, I mean that's a big room." "So, I don't know." "I mean, you need to get, you need to figure out how to get actual numbers." "I mean I wanna know facts." "So, you don't understand, right." "So you got nothing for me." "No money for us." "We get nothing, we come here, we pay everything." "We also lose money. " "Bullshit." "That's fucking bullshit." "Shan Wei, he's just totally stonewalling me and I'm getting nowhere." "We put out all this money to do this thing and the least they could do is help us recover some of that cost." "I wanna know some numbers." "We have to, I mean it's gonna be a lot of chasing and all that stuff." "It's really not that complicated, they all paid cash to get in the door tonight, that should all be your money." "This is the thing, you're going to be lucky to get on Monday, like a report, like figures." "Your attitude towards it, to me, is like 'oh yeah, it's counterfeiting, it's just something we live with.'" "That's the way you're talking to me and I'm like, 'you're crazy!" "'" "Kent's arguing with the promoter about how the show was completely packed, at 20 bucks a ticket, and he really doesn't want to give us any money." "I, like, look, thank you, thank you guys for coming here, and losing money, to do the show." "That was fucking awesome." "I don't want it to get silly." "We lost a lot of money in China and I don't care at all." "The show was amazing and we had a great time, the kids had a great time, and that's what this is all about really." "The whole fucking Asian tour was worth it for tonight." "This Beijing." "So we're in the airport on our way out of the country and I get an email from Shan Wei detailing exactly how much money they lost at the sold out concert in Beijing." "Beijing report, in the inbox." "'Please see attachment for the Beijing report Eventually we got a red ink.'" "Eventually they got a red ink." "Took a lot of manipulating but eventually Beijing got a red ink." "Ooh...so we owe them money, that's a bummer." "You should write them back and say 'thanks for everything, we see now how it works, we'll be telling all our friends that you're the guy to call... if you want to make no money.'"