meatloaf-unofficial
24 Jun 2008, 11:26
I know this is quite a few years old, but its a very interesting article (for me anyway) with great photos about an amazing piece of kit, which delivers great detail about it and was the main DMX lighting controller which was used during the 2003 tour.
It also features "Bill Sheldon" who has been with Meat touring the World as Lighting Designer since 1989... is known to be one of the longest crew memebers to stay, other than Meat himself!
PHOTOS CAN BE FOUND AT: http://www.avolites.org.uk/avonews/press/2004/meatloaf.htm
Lighting designer Bill Sheldon is using an Avolites Diamond 4 Vision console on the current UK arena leg of the Meat Loaf “Couldn’t Have Said It Better” tour, which has been on the road since summer 2003.
The Vision is the most powerful in the current Avolites range of consoles, designed for controlling large shows with lots of moving fixtures.
Sheldon has worked with Meat Loaf since 1989. He and FOH 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 continues on to Australia with him in Feb/March 2004.
In the UK, the Meat Loaf lighting fixture count includes 30 High End Studio Beam PCs, 26 HES X-Spots, 24 Morpheus ColorFaders on the truss toners, 160K of PAR 64s, 9 strings of ACLs, 10 Source Four 26 degree profile spots, 19 James Thomas 4-way Molefeys, silk flame effects and assorted other specials – all run by Sheldon using the Vision.
A major feature he likes about the D4 Vision is its speed. Even when running loads of DMX channels, the fixture access is lightening fast, 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” enthuses Sheldon.
Meat Loaf is a highly theatrical show, which starts with him being wheeled onstage in a gurney by the two backing singers, dressed in short PVC nurses uniforms! This is a parody of his recent hospitalisation for heart surgery following a dramatic mid-tour collapse onstage at Wembley. Now fully recovered, the incident has not dampened his highly energetic, full-on performance that includes anthemic mini operatic classics like “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”, “Bat Out Of Hell” and “I’ll Do Anything For Love”.
Other things he likes about the console include the full electronic legending, so there’s no need for a single shred of untidy looking tape on the desk.
He finds the user-configurability very useful, and the fact that you can lay your show out for operation in exactly they way you want it. It also offers many new options like timing on all attributes.
He makes much use of the between-scene ‘overlap’ function, which allows both different chase steps to merge/move into each other for very fluid effects, and for the user to define the order in which moving lights will “launch” and move to the next scene.
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.
Sound is being supplied by a combination of Scorpio Sound Systems (control and monitors) from West Bridgewater Massachusetts and Sirius Showequipment AG in Neiderdorfelden in Germany, who are supplying the Martin Audio line array boxes. Video is being supplied via Blink TV, with hardware from XL Video.
Lighting Meat Loaf has always had plenty of creative scope, and Sheldon’s show is a fusion of massive rock ‘n’ roll looks with moody theatrical moments – an all-colourful extravaganza of beam angles, dramatic builds and pauses, emotional charging and perfect timing. Using the D4 Vision has given him a whole load more imaginative and operative potential than before.
Now thats what Technical Theatre is all about :-)
Ross
It also features "Bill Sheldon" who has been with Meat touring the World as Lighting Designer since 1989... is known to be one of the longest crew memebers to stay, other than Meat himself!
PHOTOS CAN BE FOUND AT: http://www.avolites.org.uk/avonews/press/2004/meatloaf.htm
Lighting designer Bill Sheldon is using an Avolites Diamond 4 Vision console on the current UK arena leg of the Meat Loaf “Couldn’t Have Said It Better” tour, which has been on the road since summer 2003.
The Vision is the most powerful in the current Avolites range of consoles, designed for controlling large shows with lots of moving fixtures.
Sheldon has worked with Meat Loaf since 1989. He and FOH 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 continues on to Australia with him in Feb/March 2004.
In the UK, the Meat Loaf lighting fixture count includes 30 High End Studio Beam PCs, 26 HES X-Spots, 24 Morpheus ColorFaders on the truss toners, 160K of PAR 64s, 9 strings of ACLs, 10 Source Four 26 degree profile spots, 19 James Thomas 4-way Molefeys, silk flame effects and assorted other specials – all run by Sheldon using the Vision.
A major feature he likes about the D4 Vision is its speed. Even when running loads of DMX channels, the fixture access is lightening fast, 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” enthuses Sheldon.
Meat Loaf is a highly theatrical show, which starts with him being wheeled onstage in a gurney by the two backing singers, dressed in short PVC nurses uniforms! This is a parody of his recent hospitalisation for heart surgery following a dramatic mid-tour collapse onstage at Wembley. Now fully recovered, the incident has not dampened his highly energetic, full-on performance that includes anthemic mini operatic classics like “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”, “Bat Out Of Hell” and “I’ll Do Anything For Love”.
Other things he likes about the console include the full electronic legending, so there’s no need for a single shred of untidy looking tape on the desk.
He finds the user-configurability very useful, and the fact that you can lay your show out for operation in exactly they way you want it. It also offers many new options like timing on all attributes.
He makes much use of the between-scene ‘overlap’ function, which allows both different chase steps to merge/move into each other for very fluid effects, and for the user to define the order in which moving lights will “launch” and move to the next scene.
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.
Sound is being supplied by a combination of Scorpio Sound Systems (control and monitors) from West Bridgewater Massachusetts and Sirius Showequipment AG in Neiderdorfelden in Germany, who are supplying the Martin Audio line array boxes. Video is being supplied via Blink TV, with hardware from XL Video.
Lighting Meat Loaf has always had plenty of creative scope, and Sheldon’s show is a fusion of massive rock ‘n’ roll looks with moody theatrical moments – an all-colourful extravaganza of beam angles, dramatic builds and pauses, emotional charging and perfect timing. Using the D4 Vision has given him a whole load more imaginative and operative potential than before.
Now thats what Technical Theatre is all about :-)
Ross