"We're here to make memories," Green Day's charismatic frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told a packed Manchester Arena. Given the energy-packed, two-and-a-half hours he and fellow pop punsksters Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt served up, the chances are for the vast majority of the audience, they certainly did that.

They may now be fortysomethings but the pace they set was relentless, Armstrong charging around the stage like a demented Puck, a puppet master getting his devoted following to sing along with just the flick of a wrist.

This was frenetic, full-on and fun. What Green Day do is fairly simple - power out catchy songs at 100 miles and hour. It's a formula which hasn't changed over the years, but why should it? It just works.

From the off, the show was frenetic - a giant rabbit dancing along to the Ramone's Blitzkrieg Bop heralded the band's arrival on stage.

Then we were off, opener Know Your Enemy giving Armstrong the opportunity to give his assessment of the current US political scene. "Trump is not my president" he yelled - expletives deleted - which produced a cheer which threatened to lift the roof off.

Last year's Revolution Radio album earned Green Day some of their best reviews in years and songs from the album featured prominently with Still Breathing being a particular stand-out towards the end of a 25-song main set.

With a career spanning over 25 years there was plenty of material to go at, the band heading back to their 1991 album Kerplunk for Christie Road and 2000 Miles Away.

This was a full blown festival headline show delivered indoors. The light show, the fireworks, the flame throwers - as if the Manchester Arena needed heating up! - Armstrong even took a turn manning a hosepipe to cool down the seething masses at his feet.

Green Day were relentless, pounding their audience into submission, Armstrong wringing every last chorus out of his adoring fans. At times he was a preacher, reinforcing the message and love and rock and roll are what the world needs not "dumb politicians" but always the entertainer, hand picking one fan to lead the singing and getting another to take the guitar lead on another.

King for A Day gave keyboard and sax player Jason Freese the chance to don an Egyptian pharoah's headdress which stayed on for a riotous cover of Shout. Anthems including American Idiot, Basket Case and Jesus of Suburbia somehow managed to take the energy levels up yet another notch.

As a final encore, Armstrong, alone on stage with his acoustic guitar closed with Good Riddance which ends with the line "I hope you had the time of your lives".

I think 18,000 people would say they just had.