Project Wyze And Robin Black Dislike 30 Seconds To Mars

Playdium

Mississauga, ON

on Aug 24 2002

Trellawny Graham (CHARTattack)

09/03/2002 5:30pm

When Robin Black walked onto the stage during Project Wyze's headlining set last weekend at Playdium, I thought it might have been a planned stunt to divert attention from Project Wyze's three new members.

Half the band are new — both the guitarists and drummer — and they'd only had one rehearsal with the new line-up the night before this gig. But apparently it was part of a bigger message.

Word is there was a kafuffle before the start of the show. All of the press for the show indicated 30 Seconds To Mars was the show's headliner, but somewhere in the chain of events between booking and playing Project Wyze became the headliners.

When American band 30 Seconds To Mars thought they were being upstaged by a Canadian band the atmosphere heated up. During a freestyle tune Bobby McIntosh of Project Wyze rhymed some lyrics about 30 Seconds To Mars getting clobbered with guitars. McIntosh joked after that he was only playing around, but they were clearly frustrated.

Later, Black showed up for some freestyle rhyming over Wyze's cover of AC/DC's "Back In Black." McIntosh and fellow frontman Yas Taalat had done a hysterically funny freestyle song on their own before Black came out, but there was a point to be made — which probably would have been clearer without Black screaming out "fuck you" every few seconds. Black's freestyling was loaded with slanderous remarks about other artists. He started by saying he gave it to Avril Lavigne in the poop shoot the night before and insulted her musical integrity before moving on to Jared Leto.

To quote Black verbatim would be too harsh, so, to sum up, Black told the audience of mostly teenaged girls that they shouldn't listen to bands that suck just because their lead singer is a sexy movie star who has no talent and lots of funding.

As soon as Black left the stage he was greeted by 30 Seconds To Mars drummer Shannon Leto — pretty-boy Jared's big brother (in years and brawn). It was at that point the side stage became more interesting than the rest of the show — it may have been the only time I've seen Robin Black look scared.

Shannon Leto's arms were a-flailin', though it would seem Shannon left the stage without physically hurting Black. Black disappeared shortly after that. Project Wyze played on, quite well I might add. The new line-up adds its own juice to the Project Wyze repertoire. I

f I wasn't told they'd only had one two-hour practice with new bandmates, I wouldn't have known that there were different musicians playing the favourite, "Room To Breathe."

But back to Black.

Although he might have been smarter if he'd kept his opinions to himself, he wasn't all wrong. All I was left with from the 30 Seconds To Mars' set was a picture of a sexy frontman who does nothing but throw out a mix of some mumbles and screams. They may have had a frosty reception from a couple of our local bands, but that reception was well-deserved.