EVEN though it’s 21 years since Green Day played their first gig in California, it’s good to see everyone’s favourite punk brats refuse to grow up.

Two packed-out nights at the Arena will bear testament to their continuing popularity, be it with the 30-somethings who still remember the fresh-faced loser-core youngsters moaning about their lack of motivation from the front room couch, or their next generation of fans more familiar with their more mature output from American Idiot or 21st Century Breakdown.

They might have come of age as a band but Billie Jo, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt show no signs of slowing down, blasting out 33 tunes in a two-and-a-half-hour set that ticked every single box.

Halloween night was an ideal backdrop for the band’s sense of fun. Plucking an array of masks, tiaras, sunglasses and other paraphernalia from the audience, Billie Jo went through more costume changes than Madonna without breaking stride.

And if that wasn’t enough, the band’s inexhaustible supply of water guns, T-shirt cannons and pyrotechnics made sure things never got too serious.

Green Day have always seemed more at home on this side of the Atlantic, and the band were keen to name-check some of their English influences — Oasis, Buzzcocks, Black Sabbath and Beatles all getting a mention.

They rattled through the favourites, Basket Case, Welcome To Paradise, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, closing the show with Wake Me Up When September Ends, and one of the best songs written by anyone in the last 21 years, Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).

For the more discerning Green Day fan, however, it was the appearance of early gems like Going To Pasalacqua — a nod to their first album in 1990, 39 Smooth — that made the night all the more special.