‘Roadies’: Everything You Need to Know
Meet the men and women who work behind the scenes to make big concerts happen. Showtime‘s new series Roadies comes from the mind of Cameron Crowe, the former Rolling Stone reporter and writer-director of the modern-movie classics Say Anything…, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. His light touch and decades of insider experience make this the rare showbiz saga that’s more quirky and heartfelt than shocking and grim. The first episode airs this Sunday, June 26th (and is also currently available on YouTube for free, in an tamer TV-14 version), but before you give it a spin, here’s everything you need to know. Get those lighters up in the air and rock on.
So Roadies isn’t just about roadies?
Contrary to the show’s name, only one of the major characters is a roadie — and even she’s thinking about quitting when the story begins. Kelly Ann (played by Green Room’s Imogen Poots) is a young idealist who’s spent the summer on the road with the fictional Staton-House Band. Though she’s a music-lover, she’s worried that seeing how the sausage gets made is spoiling her appetite. So in the first episode, the heroine’s preparing to leave her backstage job to go to film school, before one eventful day forces her to rethink her plans.
The rest of the main cast is filled out by several folks who never coil a cable or lift an amp. Luke Wilson plays Bill, the Staton-House Band’s beleaguered tour manager; Carla Gugino is Shelli, the production manager. They work in tandem as the bosses of this motley crew, which also includes Luis Guzmán as a bus driver and comedian Ron White as a kind of spiritual guru and roadie emeritus. And then there’s Rafe Spall, who plays the officious and very English Reg Whitehead, a business consultant brought in to make this whole traveling circus more efficient. In other words, while the men and women who move amps and sett up lighting rigs do get a titular shout-out, the series depicts more of a 360-degree look at big time rock ‘n’ roll as a massive machine with a lot of moving parts. Setting up the equipment is only a small part of what the support staff does.
This fictional band is a big-time, arena-filling rock act, yes?
Indeed. Because Crowe spent his youth following the likes of Led Zeppelin and The Eagles across America (as fictionalized so wonderfully in Almost Famous), he understands first-hand how these large-scale operations work. There’s a hugeness to Roadies that sets it apart from the typical tale of life on the road, from the cavernous locations to the small army wielding walkie-talkies who ensure gigs go off without a hitch. The winding coliseum corridors and sizable crews keep the show lively, and prevent the audience from getting sick of seeing the same handful of characters in similar-looking dressing rooms and dank rock clubs.
‘Roadies’: Everything You Need to Know, Page 1 of 2