Go to Korea and you feel like everyone's got a chip on their shoulder. It's like everyone wants to pick a fight with you. On this occasion, someone did.

I was just sitting at the bar drinking with Korea's most famous rock band, Sinawe, and a few friends when this young salaryman started pointing in our direction and mumbling something about the "girl-like" longhairs in the bar. But like my friends, I tried to ignore him.

When he got up, I ignored him a little less, and when he knocked the barmaid flying into a glass table with a drunken lurch, I thought, "That's . . ." I didn't have time to think much more as the four members from Sinawe leapt on the guy, smashed their fists into his face, kicked him in the guts and finished him off by bringing a couple of chairs down on his head. Then we ordered another round of beers and resumed our conversation on whether or not Pearl Jam was mainstream or alternative.