Boutique At Its Best - Jersey Live 2008

As anyone who has been there will know, there’s a certain unspoiled charm about Jersey – the UK’s most boutique Channel Island. Although it only measures 9 by 5 miles across, Jersey’s detachment from the mainland has helped the island retain a largely sepia-tinged approach to life. Its narrow maze of roads separate buildings which are predominantly rustic, broken only by a few modern brush strokes; well kept picturesque landscapes, and symbols of the Island’s diverse history - which is treated as respectfully as its future.

It’s along these same roads that some 8000 festivalgoers – 10 percent of the Island’s population – now stomp annually in anticipation of Jersey Live. Since its initial conception four years ago, the festival has grown from a humble gathering into a not-so-secret haven for the Island’s music lovers. Consequently, this year’s line up – which included The Prodigy, The Zutons, Foals, Cage The Elephant and Black Kids – was the festivals most appealing, and diverse, to date.

After spending much of Saturday afternoon integrating with Islanders on a boat trip, We Are Scientists emerge on the festival’s only outdoor stage looking like they’ve just stumbled into their back garden. The music is tight and well delivered - with guitar driven tracks from their debut ‘With Love and Squalor’ sliding seamlessly into the more evocative, synth-driven sounds of 2008’s ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’.

“It’s a lot more fun to play with the pace with our set list now,” singer Keith Murray tells me earlier in the day, in between reciting words from the Phonetic alphabet which are sketched on stones along the quayside. “And we fail a lot of times. We try a lot of experimental pacing and watch as we subdue our audience or whip them into too great a frenzy.”

Their performance only takes a slight turn for the worse when bassist Chris Cain asks how many of the crowd are from the nearby Channel Island of Guernsey. After a volley of cheers and boos, he adds: "When I asked that question, I don't think you guys even realised you were standing amongst each other. Let this be a lesson - are you really so different?”