The concert Sunday night at the Byham is an upside-down version of how it would go in Dublin.

Back on the home turf, young phenom Damien Rice would be opening for The Frames, a compelling band that over the past few years has ascended from cult status to one winning out over the likes of the Thrills and U2 in music polls there.

The Frames were also the band that helped introduce Rice as a solo artist after he left his band, Juniper.

"He came on tour with us. That's how he started his own solo career," says Frames frontman Glen Hansard. "But then he came to us and said, 'Listen, I'd like to bring you on this tour, because things are going really well in the States. You'd be playing much bigger rooms. You were the band that really helped me.' He said, 'I'm a bit embarrassed to offer it to you because I know that at home, people won't understand the logic of you opening for me, but I think it would be really good.' "

The Frames, who had been playing the tiny Club Cafe when they came to Pittsburgh, didn't hesitate to make the jump to theaters.

"We were delighted, because in the States, we've come and gone, and it's been fine, but this was an opportunity to make a very definite step forward. His success over here has been amazing, and for us, to stand under the tree and catch a little bit of fruit has been really nice."

Particularly since The Frames weren't hatched yesterday. The band dates back to 1990 when they were formed by Hansard, an Irish singer-songwriter and bike enthusiast (thus the name) who left school at 13 to busk on the streets. Hansard's role in the hit Alan Parker film "The Commitments" put the band on hold, but they were then signed by Island and released a debut, "Another Love Song," that had U2's influence all over it.

Two other records followed, building The Frames an audience in Ireland, even as they remained an unknown quantity in the States.

Then came an artistic breakthrough with 2001's "For the Birds," a haltingly intimate record with mournful songs that build from whispering balladry into walls of guitar noise.

"I'd been wanting to make a record with Steve Albini," Hansard says. "I think we recorded it for 20 grand and put the whole thing together really fast. The songs, I didn't want them to be about anything vaguely rock. I wanted to make a record with a mood -- slow, sad country songs. I was in that place at the time, I was singing about death all the time, I don't even know why."

In the end, Hansard was so conflicted about the outcome of "For the Birds" that he almost walked away from the band.

"I don't like any record as we're making it," he says. "It's just one of those things where you go through that classic insecure thing where you're like 'This is [crap].' This was the first record we made without a label. It was really exciting, but the whole idea was that it would have to be a thing where if it's a total [screw-up], it would have to be our [screw-up]. And I had really thought that we [screwed up].

"The idea behind it, from the beginning," he says, "was to break down our audience to the core, to the people who mattered. We were kind of known for being around a long time and also having this kind of live following. I suppose what we needed to do was to shed our skin and shed a good bit of the audience who didn't really get us. The whole philosophy was, if our audience was 5,000, we needed to break it down to 500 and then start again. 'For the Birds' was a conscious decision to find the people who really like this band and make it for them only. No concessions made, no compromises on any level."

The irony is that "For the Birds" was embraced and became The Frames' most acclaimed and biggest selling record. You can tell that Rice gave it a listen before he made his debut "O." You can also tell that it hit a nerve from the response of fans who are ecstatically cheering and singing along with the band at a festival in Dublin last August. It's captured on "Set List," a recent live album on the band's new label, Anti, that was intended to be a low-key Internet release but ended up going to No. 1 in Ireland.

"The gigs were pretty robust, and the band that was opening for us was totally kicking [butt] every night," Hansard says. "We ended up going on and playing these really big sets and not playing typical Frames gigs at all. We decided to just go with it. The audience mikes were turned up all the way because it was a celebration of our audience."

Critics are wondering, who are The Frames and how do so many people know the words to their songs? Fans are wondering, why aren't they breaking into "Ring of Fire" during the end of "Lay Me Down" every night?

"Anyone who likes the record and cares about it has learned the bits where they should scream or not," Hansard says. "I suppose when you put out a live record you should expect that to happen, but people are calling me asking me to do the story about the dog every night. People are asking why we didn't do the Johnny Cash song at the end of 'Lay Me Down.' Well, we [bleeping] just did that on the fly. If I was doing the story every night, if I was doing it per the record, all I'd be doing is mimicking myself on one random night of my life."

As for the singing along, Hansard doesn't mind that.

"No, I quite encourage it," he says laughing, "especially in America."