Punk veterans Circle Jerks found themselves at the centre of a political showdown over the weekend after frontman Keith Morris tore into a fan during a show in Las Vegas.

Per Rolling Stone, the confrontation unfolded during the band’s May 24th performance at Brooklyn Bowl, where Morris paused between songs to vent about the current political climate before launching into the band’s 1980 track “When the Shit Hits the Fan”.

Things escalated when a concertgoer reportedly called him a “traitor” from the front row after the singer declined to sign a record mid-set. Morris fired back from the stage, questioning whether the hecklers actually understood the meaning behind the band’s lyrics.

“I vote in every election and I always vote for the least stinkiest piece of shit,” Morris said. “So, you’re not here for my political bullshit, you’re here for the music. Do you fucking understand our fucking lyrics? Do you understand what we’re singing about?”

The singer then directly criticised Donald Trump, adding: “I think fucking Donald Trump is the biggest piece of shit that ever walked upon the fucking earth.”

According to fan-shot footage from the show, tensions in the crowd later boiled over into a physical altercation during “Under the Gun”, with security removing multiple attendees from the venue as sections of the audience chanted “fuck you” toward those being escorted out.

Morris continued addressing the incident throughout the set, at one point taking aim at “white Christian nationalists” before introducing the band’s song “Moral Majority”, a track originally written in the early 1980s.

Formed in California in 1979 by Morris – formerly of Black Flag – and guitarist Greg Hetson, Circle Jerks remain one of the defining acts of the American hardcore punk movement, with landmark releases including Group Sex and Wild in the Streets.

The band has a run of European shows in the coming months, and will return to the US for the CBGB Festival in New York this September and the Darker Waves Festival in California in November.