Sheldon has worked with Meat Loaf since 1989. He and FOH sound engineer George Wehrlin are now the longest serving members of the team apart from Meat himself. Sheldon has always been a keen Avolites user, his first encounter with an Avo console was back in 1995, when he first used a Diamond 2, and he's not looked back since.
For the current tour, he jumped at the chance to take the new console on tour. The Vision was specially purchased by Creative Stage Lighting in North Creek, New York state. It was the first D4 Vision to land in the US - serial number 003. The same D4 Vision has since travelled all around the world with Sheldon, and will continue on to Australia with him in the spring.
In the UK, the Meat Loaf lighting fixture count includes 30 High End Studio Beam PCs, 26 High End X-Spots, 24 Morpheus ColorFaders on the truss toners, 160K of PAR 64s, nine strings of ACLs, 10 Source Four 26° profile spots, 19 James Thomas 4-way Molefays, silk flame effects and assorted other specials - all run by Sheldon using the Vision.
Sheldon praises the D4 Vision's speed. Even when running high numbers of DMX channels, the fixture access is lightning fast, he says, and the desk also retains that hands-on buskability for which Avolites consoles are known and loved. "The instant access and the degree of available manual control is just brilliant," says Sheldon.
Lighting supplier for the UK and European leg of the tour is Neg Earth. Sheldon's crew chief is Dave Waldon and technicians are Peter 'Kiss Army' Horne, Andy Spzalic and rigger Tony 'Max' Maxwell.
(Lee Baldock)
