Not so long ago all one needed to see Howie Day was six bucks and a tolerance for small, stuffy places. Times have changed. Given his recent pair of sold out appearances at ritzy Town Hall, you need an usher.

Howie’s different now, and it takes some getting used to...

I spent 2001 following Howie around Manhattan. I first saw him play that year at CB’s 313 Gallery. The Town Hall venue in midtown is only two miles from CB’s, but entire world away.The plush red stairs and seats were a far cry from the scuffed, beer-stained ones at my first Howie show. Music business folk, family and ahead-of-the-trend fans had been replaced by Abercrombie-chic kids, complete with flip-flops and their moms. Howie always catered to this crowd of DMB-loving, preppy clothes-wearing boys and girls and still does.

On small stages, his between-song banter had been witty, observant, a little bit dirty and not to be missed. Howie succeeds in bringing this humor to larger stages. He is a born entertainer. A gaggle of hyper girls celebrating a birthday populated the front row. Between songs, they shrieked and jumped up and down, calling for Howie to serenade their friend with a little Happy Birthday song. Ever the crowd-pleaser, Howie congratulated the girl in question, wished her happy birthday and added, “Yeah. I remember my first beer.”

It was a line I’d heard from him before, but great nonetheless.

His humor was still there, but the variety had changed. What once was a precocious blonde kid solo-ingenue from Maine was now something else entirely. His hair was brown, he had a band and he had fans. He even had a light show.

I can deal with the hair, and the band was tolerable; they had excellent chemistry and obvious respect for each other. But Howie solo can be so much more than the sum of his extra parts. In the early days, Howie built his reputation –and his songs- through skillful manipulation of pedals and loops. He was his own backup vocals and second guitarist. His lyrics were endearingly odd and nonsensical. Howie was passionate about his music, and this showed.

The artist I saw at Town Hall was more polished and more jaded. He sang some of the old songs but lacked intensity. What once made me shiver now made me yawn. Gone were his gorgeous interludes borrowed from U2 and Toto, replaced with, well, not much. The new songs were tighter and more focused – the lyrics actually made sense! – But the music lacked some of the passion that made it so damn exciting in the first place.

With affecting, romantic lyrics, it was the last song of the night (barring the encore) and the most emotional. When the audience of hundreds of boys and girls completed the chorus, Howie stepped back and grinned. Here was a boy, satisfied.

Many repetitions of the same songs have naturally led to some experimentation. In one of his newer songs, “Brace Yourself,” Howie and his band got creative and introduced what can only be described as ferocious jungle beats. Combined with the flashing lights, the beats created a new type of mood, something unexpected and refreshing.

Performances of new songs that night indicate that Howie is happy with the direction his music is going in. “Tell Me Something” and “Be Here” are catchy, uncomplicated guitar-based pop songs that will have no trouble finding a home on a popular TV show. In contrast to this new material, Howie encored with two of the oldest songs in his playbook, “She Says” and “Morning After.” While I had hoped for a solo encore, these old-time gems were perfect. Though he isn’t quite as I remembered, he’s still pretty damn good. I lament the decrease of intensity, but in my defense: I am a fan and that is my right. I might be the only one noticing its disappearance.

From his humble one-man-band roots, Howie has emerged as one of the most popular young band-based singer-songwriters on the scene today. He continually changes and updates his style, finding more fans and becoming more successful.