Wesboro Baptist church to protest Dio's memorial service.

[Feck]

http://laist.com/2010/05/31/westboro_ch ... =5#gallery

[charlou]

The attention should be on the family and the legacy of DIO, and his sendoff, not those undeserving morons.

[charlou]

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbe ... mID=140914

Scroll down the above blog page for pics, youtube clips and comments.

A commentary of the service from shapechangerVII:

I was able to attend the service today and thought I'd share my thoughts with my metal brethren.

First and foremost, a gigantic thank you to Wendy, Daniel and the whole Dio "family" for sharing this service with us fans. They could have easily just stuck with yesterday's private funeral and been done. It really says something about the Dio clan for sharing this wonderful and thoughtful experience with the the fans. THANK YOU!!

From my perspective, the day was a complete success and anyone that was there will never forget what a wonderful service it was. The folks at Forest Lawn should be commended for pulling this off while being exceptionally gracious, sympathetic and professional with the fans. The fans should be proud of themselves as well. The fans were well-behaved and respectful. The passionate yet humble fans did a great job of representing our genre and our sub-culture. Of course there are exceptions. The guy with the devil mask/hat was quite obnoxious and seemed to want to draw attention to himself more than he wanted to pay respects in a proper manner. This guy is the kind of numnutt that helps feed the fire of outsiders who stereotype us as dirtbag-idiots. There may be some folks that think I'm being a bit hard on the guy but we were at a fucking memorial service for someone who died recently. Devil-man needed to show more respect.

The Forest Lawn facility was amazing. I flew in from Wisconsin (I also got to take in the Armored Saint show on Friday night! \m/) and was not too familiar with the topography of Los Angeles, so to see such a fantastic facility nestled within those majestic hills was amazing. It was really quite the place. I was one of the few fortunate ones to get there early enough to receive a wristband to get into the service. The fans who didn't get wristbands may have been bummed out a bit but they were respectful.

Eddie Trunk did a great job hosting the service. You could tell that he really cared about RJD and that he was honored to be part of it. Fantastic job, Eddie. RJD would have been proud. All of the people who spoke did a great job too. It was an honor for me to hear them share anecdotes about their late friend. It was great to hear about RJD's history and to see amazing photos of RJD as a baby, a child and teenager. RJD's son, Daniel Padavona, shared some wonderful memories of his father. It was a bit surreal for me to hear the perspective of RJD's son. I never even knew he had a son until I read it on Blabbermouth a couple weeks ago. Kind of puts a whole new perspective on the man I already admired so much. Other speakers who I personally was moved by included Paul Shortino, Craig Goldy, Simon Wright and Scott Warren. It seemed as if these were RJD's other children. They all spoke about how RJD and Wendy either saved them, helped them or was simply the rock in their life they needed to get by during a particular time. Willie Fyfe, RJD's personal assistant, shared some great stories that had the crowd rolling with laughter. Those lighter moments really went over well. And as I mentioned, it was great to hear the anecdotes.

The music performed by some of RJD's closest friends was great too. Scott Warren, Claude Schnell, Paul Shortino, Joey Belladonna, Geoff Tate and Glenn Hughes were all spectacular as were all of the other musicians. What a treat for us fans.

I'm so happy that I was able to attend this and I was proud to be one of many who represented the millions of RJD fans from around the world. RJD was a man among boys in the business and his presence will be sorely missed but never forgotten. RIP RJD \m/