The show was announced at 4 p.m., Friday. Tickets, $62.25 each (with the service charge), went on sale at 5 p.m. The show was scheduled for 10:30 p.m. the next day.

At 11:30 on Saturday, comedian

walked onto a dark stage at the sold-out

. At 2:10 a.m.* Sunday, he said, “Ok. We laughed it out,” waved, and walked off.

Almost three years ago to the week, word of a planned

-- a free show -- buzzed around Twitter. By the time he showed up around 1 a.m., without any kind of P.A. system, there were 10,000 people there. It was a notable night for the study of both social media and crowd behavior.

“There was a naked girl on top of Starbucks,” he said Saturday night. “It was silly.” He’d meant to write a thank you note to Portland, he said. Then he didn’t. But he still might.

In 2006, Chappelle walked away from a $50 million contract and a genuine pop culture phenomenon when he ended Comedy Central’s “Chappelle’s Show.” He’s popped up off an on since, but never in any kind of sustained fashion. The current run of shows he’s been doing have all been short-notice affairs while he and friends ride motorcycles around the country. “You could have seen me coming,” Chappelle said Saturday. If you’d known what road he was on.

What does more than 2 ½ hours of late-night stand-up sound like? It was some routine; it was a lot of improv, working with and off the audience. “Nicest people with the biggest calf muscles I’ve ever seen,” he said of the locals.

This was brave performance. But then, in its own way, so was walking away from $50 million. (“Oh, you should have been there,” he said.) Doing that took guts, and it clearly took a toll.

What Saturday night and into Sunday morning promised is that Dave Chappelle isn’t done. He’s not burned out, or drugged out, or crazy. He’s searching. Someday, he’s going to figure out what's next. And when all that talent that was so loosely applied on stage at the Newmark is focused, look out.

*If you've ever been to the Newmark, you know there are a bunch of kind women who work there as ushers. Always helpful, always polite. You haven't seen quiet, exhausted, polite anger until you've seen their faces at 2:10 a.m.



-- Ryan White