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Axl Rose’s backstage demands are so unreasonable they have their own verbs, says Cameron Crowe

By | Published on Thursday 7 July 2016

Roadies

Having drawn upon his experience as a writer for Rolling Stone to bring the worlds of the musician and the music journalist to the screen as a director, Cameron Crowe’s latest target is roadies. Those people working behind the scenes on tour are the subject of a new TV comedy-drama called ‘Roadies’. And, Crowe says, they have a wealth of great stories to be mined.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Crowe said that his favourite roadie story involved the practice of ‘yellow-jacketing’.

“I heard some roadies talking about how something had to be ‘yellow-jacketed'”, he said. “I [asked] ‘What is yellow-jacketing?’ They said, ‘There was a guy that worked with Guns N Roses, and there was a show where Axl Rose needed a yellow jacket that he’d left in England before he would perform. So a roadie was given the job to get on a plane as fast as possible, go to London, find Axl Rose’s yellow jacket, and come back so he could play the show'”.

“The best part about that story”, he added, “is not that somebody had to go get a yellow jacket for Axl Rose, but that it became such lore among other roadies that it became a verb – to yellow-jacket”.

And does this revelation make it to the show? “Oh, yeah. We have a yellow-jacketing situation. Or two. Or three”.

Three? Oh, maybe roadies don’t actually have that many great stories after all, if there aren’t enough to fill ten episodes of a show without recycling them. Roadies, you are welcome to prove us wrong by sending in your best tales from the road. Maybe we’ll turn them into our own TV series, starring Axl Rose in a green jacket.



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