Let's start with a little math. Back in the day -- in this case 10 or 15 years ago -- Green Day would get a half-hour on the Warped Tour to bash out 12 or 13 songs.

Last night at the Mellon Arena, at the one-hour mark, the Green Day was just getting around to the 11th song, which is about the pace of an old prog-rock band.

But Green Day wasn't playing epic suites. Rather, Billie Joe Armstrong gradually has accrued the stage time to be a total cut-up, just like we always knew he was, and on the current tour, he has a Springsteenian two-and-a-half hours to goof off. That includes yelling "Get those hands in the air!" and "Heyyyy-oooooooh" every few minutes, climbing into the stands, turning out the lights to play with a flashlight, bringing little kids on stage to shoot water guns, shooting his own T-shirt cannon and playing punk-rock karaoke with the crowd.

Three different fans were brought on stage to sing the verses on "Long View," the last one a tall redhead who nailed it, until he wimped out on the stage dive. With some prodding from the pushy frontman -- "Get your [butt] back up here, we're going to do this right way!" -- he chose to man-up and do it.

That first hour of the show was heavy on the new album, "21st Century Breakdown," starting with the title track and moving on to the repetitive single "Know Your Enemy" and "East Jesus Nowhere," complete with a rant about "getting saved tonight." It was all planned out and choreographed to the visuals on the screens, in big arena rock show mode, and whatever message Green Day was trying to get across with its current mini-rock opera was lost amid all the fun and shenanigans.

Then, after "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," Green Day whipped back to its punk rock roots with "2000 Light Years Away" from 1992 and asked the fans what they wanted to hear. It resulted in the highlight of the night -- a fierce, thrashy version of "J.A.R.," followed by another blast of more pure punk, "At the Library," the opening track off their very first album.

Suddenly, Green Day was back to bashing out songs at the 2:30 pace and moving right along, through the heavy riffage on "Brain Stew/Jaded," the kookiness of "Basket Case" and the throbbing "She," stopped for a second to break up a small skirmish down front.

Then it was back to arena-rock spectacle. "King for a Day" arrived with funny hats and sax-kazoo square-off at center stage -- did I mention that Green Day is six pieces now? From there it was a novelty no one ever would have expected from Warped Green Day -- an oldies medley that included "Shout" and "Stand by Me." (Why not just inherit "Devil with Blue Dress"/"Good Golly Miss Molly" cause the Boss doesn't seem to do it much anymore.) Before Armstrong got to the sweet solo acoustic close of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" we were treated to more fireworks and explosions, more heyy-oooohs, a confetti shower and a girl up on stage to play guitar on "Jesus of Suburbia," which was cool.

It was like Green Day stopped at the rock 'n' roll party store on the way to the Arena. A fun, crazy night for the whole family, if you don't mind the profanity. Now here's a quaint suggestion for a future tour: a blowout hour of no-frills pop-punk circa 1994.