This spring during my binge watching of Shameless, Billions and a few other shows on Showtime, I noticed trailers for this new show called “Roadies” popping up. I took a quick look on IMDB to see what I could decipher and saw a few things that made me go “meh” and forget about the show.

Most notably “Cameron Crowe” and “Luke Wilson”. I don’t have anything against these guys but when I see them as top billing on a show I tend to not get juiced up to watch it.

Then the show happened for a few weeks and I didn’t watch it. GOT ended and all of my other shows were on hiatus so I decided to give “Roadies” a try for one episode.  Needless to say I got hooked and watched the entire season as quickly as possible.

I’ve seen a lot of people banging on this show, saying it sucked or had no point. I don’t see what they are talking about. In a world of TV where everyone is being killed, stabbed in the back, framed or whatever, “Roadies” is a welcomed breath of fresh air. The show is just nice, not overly comical, not overly dramatic and not overly sexual. Simply put, it’s a nice show.

I’m not going to give a full on review and tell you episode by episode what was good about this show. Instead, here are my top three reasons why you should check out “Roadies” on Showtime.

No. 3 – The Fact the Fake Famous Band isn’t Forced Down Our Throat: I liked the premise of the show “Vinyl” on HBO but hated how this fact band, with a fake song in the 70’s was suppose to be the new cornerstone of a record label. On Roadies the “Staten House Band” is assumed to be a pretty popular group that is probably on the tail end of their run. The show isn’t based around their music but rather the music that influenced the band and their crew. We hear snippets of songs or the stories behind the songs but it’s not presented as if “wow, how could you NOT know about SHB!” That’s a key point. Nothing takes me out of a show more than when a “hit song” comes on from whatever fake band is being portrayed.  Although, “Scotty Doesn’t Know” from the movie Eurotrip still remains a favorite.

No. 2 – The Music: From the obscure to songs you likely here every day the music on the show is solid. Maybe the story lines on how some of the musicians came to know the band or crew are a bit far fetched but the performances on the show are solid. Every episode I found myself googling some song that I didn’t recognize. Lindsey Buckingham doing “Bleed to Love Her” is the most memorable performance of the show. Jackson Browne, John Mellencamp, Jeff Buckley and many more can be heard. If you never watch this show, at least google the soundtrack and enjoy.

No. 1 – Ron White: Yes, the comedian Ron White is in this show and he is easily the strongest character. If there was ever a character made for Ron White to play on television it was definitely Phil. White has always been a hell of a story teller and his performance in Roadies makes you forget about the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and all of his other work. He puts on a great performance in this show and hope to see him take on more roles like this in the future. In one of the final episodes most of the storyline is built around him telling about his upbringing into the music industry. His story telling is captivating and if you only watch one episode skip ahead to the all night bus ride to see White’s performance.

Check out “Roadies” on Showtime. It’s OnDemand now or I’m sure you all can figure out someplace to watch it for free.