Although inclement weather dampened the second straight Red Butte Garden concert of the season, Steve Martin thoroughly entertained the sell-out crowd Wednesday night with a set that was as much comedic as musical.

It was called an "An Evening of Bluegrass and Banjo," but "Sharp Wit" could have been added to the bill. In between each bluegrass song Martin bantered with the crowd with good humor, with his five-piece backing band The Steep Canyon Rangers acting as the straight men.

"It's been a longtime dream of mine, to play bluegrass in Salt Lake City," Martin said as he took the stage. "Tonight, I feel I am one step closer to that goal."

Because Martin's four banjos were temperamental in the damp, cold weather, he spent several minutes in between each song tuning his five-stringed instrument. As he tuned his banjo, he would regale the crowd with stories and jokes that often poked fun at his band mates.

To paraphrase one of his jokes, he said that after the show, the band would get onto the bus and pull out some cards, or jam on their instruments, and talk to one another about how the show went as beer was imbibed. He paused, then added, at least that's what the band tells him "when I call them from my private plane."

In another instance, he began one song by saying, "This is a song ... well, that pretty much says it all."

Other zingers included:

» "I hear Jerry Seinfeld is doing a concert with songs he wrote for the bassoon."

» "Forty years ago, I played Salt Lake City. So there are a lot of familiar faces."

Before another song, he quipped that he knew his next bluegrass album, to be recorded with the Steep Canyon Rangers and released in 2011, will be a hit because "the week of release I'm going to die of a Vicodin overdose."

The jokes were what the crowd wanted, since this was probably the first bluegrass concert to ever sell out in Utah. But the band offered pleasant renditions of songs that Martin wrote for his Grammy-winning 2009 album "The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo." While no one would compare Martin with Bela Fleck, Martin held his own with the North Carolina band he picked to support him, and offered quick arpeggiated plucking that impressed the audience.

About half of the songs were instrumentals, and while Martin sang "Late for School," guitarist Woody Platt sang most of the vocal songs with his rich, warm voice. (Martin said Platt's name sounded like it had come from an online bluegrass-musician name-generator.)

The Punch Brothers opened the night with an impressive 30-minute set that ranged from the old (Jimmie Rodger's "The Brakeman's Blues," complete with yodeling) to the new (a cover of The Strokes' "Reptilia," complete with angst.) The quintet whetted the appetite for its next show in Utah, a headliner Aug. 9 at the State Room.