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The road crew (also known as roadies) are the support personnel who travel with an artist or band on tour, usually in sleeper buses, and handle every part of the concert productions except actually performing the music with the musicians. This catch-all term covers many people: tour managers, production managers, stage managers, front of house and monitor engineers, lighting directors, lighting designers, lighting techs, guitar techs, bass techs, drum techs, keyboard techs, pyrotechnicians, security/bodyguards, truck drivers, merchandise crew, and caterers, among others.
The road crew are generally uncredited, though many bands take care to thank their crew in album sleeve liner notes. In some cases, roadies have stepped in to help out with playing onstage. It is common for guitar, bass and drum technicians (who are responsible for setting up instruments and sound checking them) to be skilled musicians in their own right, and they are naturally familiar with the music being played, so there are many cases where they have stepped in when band members have been injured or otherwise could not perform.
A number of roadies have gone on to join bands and write music.