When the Swell Season -- essentially Frames frontman Glen Hansard and Czech songstress Markta Irglov -- played U Street's beautiful Lincoln Theatre last December, they nearly upstaged headliner Damien Rice. Returning to the Lincoln on Sunday night, the Swell Season were deservedly the main attraction, riding a wave from the sleeper hit movie "Once," wherein Hansard and Irglov basically play less famous versions of themselves, falling in love (kind of) as they wander Dublin composing songs together.

The movie and the duo's songs share a bittersweet hue, but Sunday's concert was purely celebratory. Performing in various configurations -- Hansard solo, Hansard/Irglov duo, and as a five-piece with cellist Bertrand Galen, violinist Marja Tuhkanen and Frames fiddler Colm MacConlomaire -- the ensemble conjured up forceful yet intimate readings of songs from the Swell Season's sole album and the "Once" soundtrack, Frames favorites and well-chosen covers of songs by Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and, um, Michelle Shocked. (Don't snicker. The rave-up of Shocked's "Fogtown" that closed the main set was one of the evening's highlights.) But the lovesick ballads featured prominently in "Once" -- "Falling Slowly," "When Your Mind's Made Up" and the title track -- drew the biggest cheers from a rapt audience that mostly stayed quiet enough during the performances to let these haunting, fragile ballads resonate.

Onstage as on-screen, Hansard and Irglov's chemistry is palpable. Truly, theirs is a match made in heaven. Okay, Ireland. On this night, it was close enough.

-- Chris Klimek, Nov. 2007