G-Force did it, after returning to Pittsburgh from successive U.S. tours with Van Halen. The Clarks did it, after packing up the van and hitting every college bar between here and California. So did Rusted Root, after graduating from local venues to opening theater and stadium concerts for Plant & Page, Santana and the Grateful Dead.

		PovertyNeck Hillbillies Where: Chevrolet Amphitheatre, Station Square When: 7:30 p.m. Friday Tickets: $25, 412-323-1919

A curious thing happens to the best local bands whenever they leave their nurturing fans at home and get their first taste of the exhilarating, cutthroat concert industry. They return home looking a little sharper on stage, blending their parts a little more smoothly, understanding their place in the industry a little more clearly and knowing what they need to do finally to turn their dreams into a sustaining career.

The PovertyNeck Hillbillies returned to Pennsylvania a better band after a year of showing the Southeast and Texas how we do country music north of the Mason-Dixon. They'll flex their new professionalism Friday when they and 4,000 fans crowd under the Chevy Amphitheatre for a CD release party celebrating the Hillbillies' major label debut.

In February, the Fayette County country band signed with Cleveland-based Rust Records, giving them access to some of that sweet global Sony Music distribution. Rust boasts that the band has already sold 25,000 copies of its previous independent CDs -- no doubt a result of the band's hard work, good advice from manager Bob Corbin, and moderate to heavy mainstream rotation on the Froggy radio stations, courtesy of VP of programming Frank Bell.

The new release is, well, not exactly new. Unusual for a national debut, it's a two-disc package including some re-recorded songs and remastered versions of the band's last independent CD, "Don't Look Back." The second disc is a DVD containing "PovertyNeck Hillbillies Live," the studio concert broadcast on WQED-TV, and a one-hour documentary about the band.

"We look at it this way," says Rust Records president Ken Cooper. "If they had national distribution at the time of the release of 'Don't Look Back,' we think it could have gone gold. If it doesn't take off, we've souped it up to give their fans something special until the next record."

Every $25 ticket to the Chevy Amphitheatre show comes with a free copy of the CD-DVD package.

Already, Rust is treating the Hillbillies like a national band, and Music Row has been reasonably receptive. Two weeks ago, they showcased at a major country radio conference in Las Vegas, not long after their first Rust single, "The Hillbilly Way," barely cracked the Top 50 on the Billboard Radio Chart. They have higher hopes for their second single, "Mr. Right Now," which comes out June 19.

The major label distribution is already evident. Walk into any local Wal-Mart or Best Buy and you'll find the PovertyNeck Hillbillies' two-disc CD-DVD package specially priced at $9.99. Rust hopes to make it available everywhere.

This week, PNH performed for everybody who's anybody in Nashville, opening for Big & Rich and Trace Adkins on the opening night of the massive Fan Fair CMA Music Festival. Rust is buying trade magazine ads and courting country radio stations across the country. And the Hillbillies have a new booking agent working to get the band an opening slot with a country headliner later this year.

Rust has imported a Nashville video crew to tape Friday's concert at Station Square.

"If you're at that concert," promises Cooper, "you will be in the video for 'Mr. Right Now.' "

Immediately after the show, PNH heads out on a 90-day tour that reunites them with their regional base from Ohio to Maryland and carries them south to Kentucky and Tennessee, north through Michigan and west through California and Washington state.

Lead singer Abby Abbondanza says it's "exhilarating" to play Vegas with guys like Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney, and "overwhelming" to be announced on the red carpet at the ACM Awards. Since the 2000 Graffiti Rock Challenge, when the Hillbillies started thinking of themselves as an original band, they've dreamed of getting a shot at country stardom. Now, says Abbondanza, he feels like they're starting to be "accepted in that tight-knit community."

"We're definitely feeling like we learned something out on the road," he says. "It does something to you. I've learned to find my voice in the last year or so. Instead of doing a song in A, I'll do it in G and not try to push my voice to where it won't go."

And after learning a thing or two about songwriting from collaborating with Corbin, Abbondanza says he's "spreading his wings" in Nashville co-writing sessions with hotshots like Mark Narmore ("That's What I Love About Sundays") and Gary Duffy ("Paint Me a Birmingham").

"Visually, I've really tried to change my image, too," he says. "I knew if I didn't change my look I'd be just another guy with a cowboy hat on. I hit the gym, dropped 80 pounds, put 15 pounds of muscle on top of that and bought all new clothes."

The Hillbillies have done just about everything in their own "Hillbilly way," from refusing to move to Nashville to remaining a cohesive band in an industry that prefers to surround singers with Nashville-based session and road bands.

"You know," says Abbondanza, "a lot of people in Nashville have told us that they're so happy that we did it the way we did, just to prove that it could be done."