Proving yet again that heavy metal musicians with songs called “Spill the Blood” are more tolerant than religious junkies, Slayer asked their fans to ignore the Westboro Baptist Church picketers who planned to attend yesterday’s public memorial for the band’s recently deceased co-founder Jeff Hanneman.
On their Facebook page, they pleaded:
MESSAGE TO FANS: Want to really piss off the Westboro Baptist Church at Jeff’s Memorial Celebration? Do exactly what Slayer members and family are going to do – totally ignore them. They don’t exist. And then come inside and celebrate Jeff’s life with us.
They listened (allegedly the WBC didn’t even show up), and the memorial was a solemn, but F*CK YEAH affair.
An hour before the Hollywood Palladium opened at 3.30 p.m., there were already hundreds of people in line around three corners of the block that houses the iconic 4,000-capacity venue on Sunset Boulevard.
Speakers at the event included Kerry King of Slayer as well as Dino Paredes of American Recordings and Brian Slagel of Metalblade Records. The rowdy crowd regularly chanted Hanneman’s name throughout the service. Reading his notes from his iPhone, Kerry King opened his speech – which included various stories about getting drunk with Hanneman – by thanking fans for attending.
“Thanks a lot for showing up. It means a lot,” he said. He went on to joke about the significance of the Palladium. “We got a lot of history in this joint,” he commented. “Me and Jeff got banned here for 20 years, so its kind of ironic.” King took a glass of Jagermeister on stage with him to sip during his tribute. “Unlike myself, Jeff hated Jagermeister,” he said. “But I had to come up here with something to cheer my friend.” (Via)
Was there a mosh pit? Oh, there was a mosh pit (wait until the end of the video).
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, shove to shove.
