Road crew
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- "Roadie" redirects here. For the 1980 movie, see Roadie (film).
The road crew (or roadies) are the technicians who travel on tour, usually in sleeper buses, with musicians and who handle every part of the production except actually playing the music. This catch-all term covers Tour Managers, Production Managers, Stage Managers, Front of House and Monitor Engineers, Guitar Techs, Bass Techs, Drum Techs, Keyboard Techs, Security/Bodyguards, Lighting Technicians, and pyrotechnic technicians, amongst others.
The road crew are generally uncredited, though many bands take care to thank their crew in album sleeve notes; Pantera and Motörhead even go so far as to feature their crew in their tour videos, and Motörhead wrote the song "(We Are) The Road Crew" about their crew. Pink Floyd showed theirs on the rear sleeve of Ummagumma and recorded them speaking on Animals. Jackson Browne on his 1977 tour, "Running On Empty," wrote his famous song "The Load-Out" (usually heard in a live version hybrid with a cover of the Maurice Williams tune "Stay") in order to honor his roadies, who carried and set up a mobile recording studio (pre Protools tm)in Holiday Inns and other fancy locations. The DVD version of Dire Straits' album On the Night features an extended introduction to their song "Calling Elvis", while the video shows the preparatory work of the roadies. Lynyrd Skynyrd went as far as to feature their road crew on the cover of some of their albums as members of the band. Simple Plan has an entire chapter on their DVD A Big Package For You dedicated to their roadie, Patrick Langlois. On each of the KMFDM live dvds, roadies play huge parts. Most are interviewed and some are given the spotlight. On the back of the Allman Brothers Band's album Live at the Fillmore East there's a picture of their roadies in virtually the same positions as the actual band is on the front. Problem Child (1990) child actor Michael Oliver has been a roadie for the past 8 years for several bands. Jethro Tull have been fond of using the crew members for humorous or dramatic effect in their shows. One such gimmick is to have crew members don headlamp helmets (such as a miner would use) in order to provide a follow spot (spotlight) for instrumental solos. Nick Tongue, a guitar tech on Steve Vai's 1996 tours, was a Vai fan and excellent guitarist who was worked into the show for an authentic and rousing three-guitar encore version of The Attitude Song, alongside Vai and Mike Keneally.
A number of roadies have gone on to join bands and write music. For example, Rick Biddulph was a roadie for Hatfield and the North and National Health and then went on to play in several bands with members of those bands, while Noel Gallagher was a roadie for Inspiral Carpets before he formed Oasis. A southern rock band named Grinderswitch were composed of Allman Brothers roadies. They would often open for them during the early Allman days and would usually borrow their instruments. Lemmy Kilmister was a roadie for Jimi Hendrix before joining Hawkwind, and later forming Motörhead. Jan Michael Alejandro, roadie for Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Jackson Browne, Blondie, James Taylor, Todd Rundgren and Linda Ronstadt, played and wrote songs with singer, Arnold McCuller. Also, Bob Bryar, of the New Jersey rock band My Chemical Romance, was a sound tech before the band asked him to play drums for them, following the departure of their original drummer.
Billy Howerdel worked as guitar tech and Pro Tools engineer for the band Tool before he started A Perfect Circle which featured Maynard James Keenan as band member.
Professional wrestler B.G. James wrestled as "The Roadie" for a period in the mid-1990s.
