Dennis Sheehan to Receive Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award
Tour Manager for U2 will receive the “Oscar® of Live Production’s” highest honor at gala award ceremony

LAS VEGAS—The Parnelli Awards Board of Directors announced that Dennis Sheehan will be receiving this year’s Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award honoring his four decades in the live entertainment industry. Currently Tour Manager for U2, the venerable professional will be honored for his work and contributions at an award ceremony in Las Vegas on October 24, 2008.

“Dennis is a great, hardworking, and loyal Tour Manager who always has everyone’s best interest at heart all the time,” says fellow Tour Manager Jake Berry. “I think it’s his enthusiasm and love of the industry that has enabled him to maintain the breakneck speed that the job requires for all these years.” Berry has worked with Sheehan on U2 tours, and also a veteran of acts like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Madonna, among many others.

It’s Sheehan’s closeness to U2 both professionally and personally that is most revealing as to his talents and abilities. Berry tells of the time when it was his birthday, and U2 dressed up as members of Led Zeppelin in his honor. “It was hilarious. They’d do anything for him.”
Sheehan was born in Wolverhampton, England in 1947. When he was 12, he took up the guitar and through his teens played in bands around the country and later in Europe. He ended up on a different kind of gig with the Jamaican band Jimmy James and the Vega Bonds when during a big tour of Europe, the tour manager had to suddenly return to Jamaica. “I had driven my own band around, so I got the job,” he says. “I decided that this was a bit of a break, and that I wasn’t going to miss playing very much.” Thus his professional tour managing career was launched.

Other groups he worked with in the early days included Lulu and Stone the Crows. He was working with the latter in 1972 when the guitarist, Leslie Harvey, was killed onstage by an unearthed microphone. Sheehan himself was thrown back 10 feet after being shocked when he touched the board. (In the early days, he often handled sound duties as well.)
Later he made a connection with Peter Grant, manager of Led Zeppelin. He would assist with many of Led Zeppelin’s biggest tours. Other acts he worked with include The Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshies, Soft Cell, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, and many others.

In 1982 he began his long career with U2, which he got through U2 manager Paul McGuinness. “The band works incredibly hard, and they go to extreme lengths to achieve what they want,” he says. “With many bands, you get to a peak, and that’s it. With U2 they are still climbing that mountain.” Sheehan is still climbing it with them. Not only does he take care of the band’s tours, but is also called on to help with various solo projects from getting Bono in front of congress to testify on behalf of Africa, or working with The Edge as he supports and promotes Music Rising, a charity for the central gulf region in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Currently he’s working with the band as they record a new album, and looks forward to going out with them next spring. Of his success he says: “I think people knew I had a sense of responsibility, and always got the job done, regardless. I’m quite pleased to have been a part of [the industry].”