I was just listening to The Load Out and Stay roadies, the lyrics by Jackson Browne on the radio, and I wonder how rock artists in general feel about the roadies.
Any roadies and/or stars out there?
I’ve only known one roadie, and all he would ever talk about was the ‘overflow pootang’ (his words :)) he got from wannabe groupies.
No, I’m not looking for a job to while away my retirement. 
Peace,
mangeorge
I didn’t think so.
Peace,
mangeorge
Maybe the movie, Almost Famous, gives a glimpse of this issue. Maybe.
I roadied, not for anyone famous, just a somewhat more than local industrial band, as well as helping national acts for load in and load out, but that was more grunt work.
With the regular band I was treated like I was one of the band, and even got to fill in when one of the singers was unable to do a show. They weren’t famous enough to have “overflow poontang”, but there were plenty of parties, and I did have to go search out certain women from the crowd for the singer. Most of my job was pretty boring, haul gear, set up gear, help out with soundcheck, put out fires (unsigned indusrial band = home made pyro), run interference with club owners, tear down and haul gear back to trucks, break up fights.
With the national acts, like I said, it was grunt work, with little contact with the bands, other than asking places to score weed, or places to eat. Other than that, I was pretty much ignored, which was fine by me. I was paid by the club, not the band.
I don’t know if this answers any of the questions you had (probably not), feel free to ask for specifics if you’d like.
There’s a great quote in a MOJO article about AC/DC which describes two camps backstage at an AC/DC show (I’ll paraphrase) – One is a small group of scraggly loser-types hanging out by themselves, drinking beer. The other is a hard-partying bunch of guys, rocking out, gettin’ loaded, and goin’ nuts with a room full of hot chicks.
The first camp? AC/DC
The second, hard-livin’ camp? Yep. The roadies.
And indie/punk rock “roadies” tend to have a bitchin’ time, since they’re usually just friends of the band who are looking to get the hell out of their hometown and drink some free beer.