Macau rock band gets 3am wake-up call to open for Grammy-winning Linkin Park

It seems only natural a Macau rock band open for Grammy-winning Linkin Park at their Macau concert on Sunday. But the route that sextet Scamper (pictured) took to join the bill with the metal stars went by way of online artist community alivenotdead.com. The website helped Linkin Park find the right sort of opening act for its headline show at the CotaiArena at the Venetian Macao. Since July, an online band search has been conducted, with more than 30 local groups signing up and the public voting for their favourites.

The top five acts then had their details forwarded to the members of Linkin Park, and only on early Thursday morning, at about 3am, did they decide to give the opening slot to Scamper. The group - guitarists Jun Mak and Ding Mak, singer Angus Chao, bassist Raiden Wong, drummer El and keyboard player Eric - will play for 30 minutes in front of the sold-out crowd of 15,000. It's not a lot of time for the young band to prepare, but they are certainly excited.

So what do Scamper sound like? They say a combination of emo, punk and rock. Just what a Linkin Park show needs: more angst.