Review by Joe Welsh of Fooled By April

On this muggy Wednesday in Beantown Scamper was determined, to paraphrase the song, to "build this city. Build this city on rock and roll." And to keep the paraphrased cliches rolling, when they built it, people came. The night of ass-kicking began with We Are Scientists from NYC. After their blistering set, my ass was already sore. Next up was Fooled By April, who I don't know much about except that everyone says the guitar player is VERY good looking. Unfortunately, they are wrong. Boo.

Finally it was time for the main event, the boys of the evening, the men of the hour, the sunflower oil that kept this metaphorical non-dairy spread night sticking together.

Scamper kicked my ass so hard that I am literally having ass fixing surgery next week. It was perhaps the finest show I've ever seen them play, and I've seen a few. The songs from the new Ep sounded better than I've ever heard them, the Matthew Sweet cover was dee-lish and Marc's good looks kept me swooning all night.

The best way that I can put it was that their show was 45 minutes of the feeling you get when "Back in Black" kicks in on AOR radio. It was a frigging blast.

setlist: What a Shame | Sophie | Oh Lucy | Super | Sick of Myself (Matthew Sweet) | Longshot | Over & Over | Soon as You're Gone | What's On | encore: Molly's Lips (Nirvana) (actually, The Vaselines)

Review by Melissa Anderson]

Last night, I had the pleasure of taking in the Scamper EP release show at the Middle East. I was greeted by a smiling Keith (half the guitar/vocal tag team of Scamper fame) who immediately pointed at the EP, which he touted as "the fruits of [my] labor". That made me giggle. My day job at that place famous for employing "Slack Motherfuckers" everywhere helped him out in that capacity. Shhh…don't tell my boss (and I'm hoping he doesn't read this), but I totally hooked him up with like, 100 free color copies for his labels.

In any case, I went to this show only knowing their sound described as "rock and roll", and having them compared to Ash. So, I had no expectations. But hear you me, even if I had pretty high ones, I wouldn't have been let down. These boys, they rock. Their enthusiasm for playing out is as apparent as Britney Spears' boob job, and they've got the catchiest hooks since Brad Pitt in "A River Runs Through It".

I highly recommend you catch these kids live before they inevitably blow up. Because yes, their "blow up" is inevitable, and though their show did rock, the best part of the whole experience was getting a thank-you email for simply attending the show. How fucking cool is that?

We Are Scientists, the opening band from NYC tore shit up and rocked me out for the 10 minutes I got the chance to see them. I'm definitely making a mental note to check out their website. The other opener, Fooled By April, the hometown band with the best sticker campaign since Zen Lunatic, also rocked out pretty hard. Their Led Zeppelin cover nearly knocked my socks off; but I was most impressed by their original stuff, coupled with everyone (but me) in the audience singing along and gruvin' away.

Back to Scamper (or SCAAAAAAMMMMPEEERRRR, if you're any one of their hardcore female fans in attendance at the show), since this night was all about their party.

They are obviously talented musicians, who know how to play, know how to write, and know how to rock; yet play like they just got their instruments and finally figured out how to plug in their amp. Get on it and get their EP, at the very least you can critique my printing skills, but trust me; you will get much, much more.