There’s a pink rabbit man on the stage performing carnal acts to hype the crowd. Tattered and road worn, with some sort of flowery thing sticking out of his… well, he’s seen better days. It’s as if he’s made one too many visits the basement of the pawn shop from Pulp Fiction (or the one on Dame Street for that matter).

The same can’t be said for their – and our – masters for the evening, as the eternal pop-punk maestros, through the fire and the flames, put on a relentless and polished performance in honour of two of their most acclaimed albums in Marlay Park yesterday.

Green Day at Marlay Park. Copyright Peter O'Hanlon.

The show is split into two main segments. The first is dedicated to their 1994 opus Dookie and the second to 2004’s American Idiot, each record celebrating its 30^th and 20^th anniversary respectively.

Before the nostalgia bathing begins though, Green Day start off with a newer one, ‘The American Dream Is Killing Me’, from their most recent LP Saviours. It’s a decent, unmistakably-Green Day track with an easy-to-learn chorus which whets the crowd’s appetite without the band showing their hand too early.

Dookie, in all its teenage wasteland glory, happens in a flash. Blink and we’re already five songs deep, with Mike Dirnt lapping up the admiration as he slings out ‘Longview’s  lazy summer afternoon of a bassline.

Green Day at Marlay Park. Copyright Peter O'Hanlon.

Scanning the setlists of their recent shows one would count (give or take) 37 songs on the bill. How they manage to fit all that in their two and a half hour set was anyone’s guess. The answer is that Green Day don’t stop. Each song blasts into the next, there’s no time for interstitial banter with the audience or to take any breathers.

Billie Joe Armstrong, who’s voice seemingly refuses to age, jumps down from speaker cabinets and sprints from one end of the stage to the other without breaking his stride. Drummer Tré Cool meanwhile, is aloft on his platform, hammering at breakneck speed like he isn’t a day over 21.

Green Day at Marlay Park. Copyright Peter O'Hanlon.

The physicality of it all is even more impressive when you consider that their imposing Mad Max-evoking stage design, consisting of skyscraper Marshall stacks, intermittently spits out great plumes of fire. There’s an intense, brief, burst of heat you can feel from 100 meters back every time it happens. It’s a wonder that the band don’t melt, or that the drummer’s Mohawk hasn’t lit up like a candle wick.

‘Basket Case’ is when things really get going, drawing the hitherto biggest cheer of the evening – it seems plenty of people have the time to listen to Armstrong whine about nothing and everything all at once.

The trio’s trademark humour is on display too, as the can-bashing Cool comes down to prance around the stage like he’s on a cheesy Broadway show as he delivers a solo rendition of the charmingly goofy ‘All By Myself’.

A fan-assisted performance of ‘Know Your Enemy’ swiftly follows, with a die-hard punter and Armstrong offering up an uber-passionate, wholesome duet.  The Dookie part of the show ends with an Insomniac track, the stoner-y, doomy ‘Brain Stew’, led in by a well-received nod to Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’.

There’s no time to waste as the American Idiot section begins. A massive inflatable of the iconic, agitprop hand-grenade-heart-in-hand pops up on stage and the energy levels are taken up a notch.

Green Day at Marlay Park. Copyright Peter O'Hanlon.

Green Day dive into the title track’s instantly recognisable power chorded intro, a timeless tune which felt particularly fitting on an evening when the US Presidential debates were taking place.

American Idiot’s songs are made for massive live settings. The record is bursting with arena-worthy choruses laced with scything, observational and political lyricism – whether its the fleshed out ‘Jesus Of Suburbia’, or the marching 'Are We The Waiting'.

All the heavy hitters arrive as the show sinks deep into the setlist. The crowd take over vocal duties on the anthemic ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’, as they do on the mellower, bittersweet ‘When September Ends’ – which features a snippet of ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’.

Nostalgia reaches boiling point with heart-breaker ‘Whatshername’, before the full band wraps it up with a Saviours number in the form of the sweet ‘Bobby Sox’.

A sole song is offered up for the encore but it's worth ten. Billie Joe comes back out alone with an acoustic guitar to deliver a cherry on top in the form of ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)’. You’ll do better to find a group that has a better track to send their fans home with.

Summed up in the enigmatic frontman’s words, the gig wasn’t a party, it was a celebration.