Taking the stage to an ironic, overlong hair-metal drum solo, comedian Demetri Martin ditched all histrionics and stuck to his recent promise of just jokes for his “Persistence of Jokes” tour Saturday.

Walking onto the State Theatre stage (which, with its plain black curtain, went “all-out” as Martin quipped), the stand-up delivered a solid hour-and-a-half of his signature one-liners, interrupted with only a brief guitar outro.

While bits about ‘please’ and ‘abracadabra’s reputations as the magic words (“you wouldn’t say, ‘bitch, abracadabra,’”) hit, Martin’s real success came from his approachable stage presence, which, even in the 2,000-seat theatre, kept the performance feeling conversational.

After a few latecomers crept to the front row, Martin casually greeted them (“hey, what’s up?”) and asked them where they were from. The fans responded with ‘Lakeville,’ which the comedian dubbed “the perfect, made-up sounding Minnesota city, where 9,000 of the lakes are located.”

While the comedian kept his jokes-per-minute ratio high throughout the night, some fans missed classic Demetri Martin trademarks like the Large Pad and his Useless Talents. Avoiding old schticks, Martin’s “Persistence” stop in Minneapolis was a great preview to the future hour-special taping in March.