Dennis Sheehan, longtime tour manager for U2 and 2008 Parnelli Lifetime Achievement award winner, died May 27. He was 68. Sheehan had been in Los Angeles with U2 for a series of shows in the early part of the band’s 2015 iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour. U2 had opened the first of five shows at the Forum the night before.
U2 dedicated their next performance to him, showing images of him on the concert video screen during the show. “We’ve lost a family member,” Bono wrote. “We’re still taking it in. He wasn’t just a legend in the music business, he was a legend in our band. He is irreplaceable.”
“With profound sadness we confirm that Dennis Sheehan, U2’s longstanding tour manager and dear friend to us all, has passed away overnight,” noted Arthur Fogel, CEO Global Touring, Chairman Global Music Live Nation Global Touring, on U2’s website. “Our heartfelt sympathy is with his wonderful family.”
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 Vagabonds 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 told PLSN in 2008. “I decided that this was a bit of a break, and that I wasn’t going to miss playing very much.” Thus his 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 ungrounded 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 & the Banshees, Soft Cell, Patti Smith and Lou Reed.
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 said. “With many bands, you get to a peak, and that’s it. With U2 they are still climbing that mountain.”
For decades Sheehan was a key member of the family. Not only did he take care of the band’s long and complicated tours, but he was also called on to help with various solo projects from getting Bono in front of top U.S. officials to help raise awareness and funding to relieve suffering in Africa, to working with The Edge promoting Music Rising, a charity launched in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that provides support after natural disasters including musical instruments.
Jake Berry, another member of the U2 family and Parnelli Lifetime Achievement honoree as well, commented in that 2008 article that Sheehan had wonderful tales to tell. “He’s one of the world’s greatest storytellers,” Berry said. His stories of the 1970s certainly entertained U2 — so much so that on one of Sheehan’s birthdays the band dressed up like members of Led Zeppelin for him. “It was hilarious,” Berry recalls.
“I think people knew I had a sense of responsibility, and always got the job done, regardless,” he said. “I’m quite pleased to have been a part of [the industry].” He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oct. 24, 2008 ceremony.
To read the original 2008 article go to plsn.me/2008-Parnelli. To see a movie on the life of Dennis Sheehan, please go to
www.parnelliawards.com/movie_sheehan.html.
