Spirit of Play: will the TLS band get to number one?

It must be more than two decades since I have been to a gig. In fact, even in my mis-spent youth I wasn't much of a gig-goer, being more of a library girl. But last night I was at the Dublin Castle in Camden Town enjoying the bands, along with an audience that included rather more literary types and professors than you usually find at such occasions.

What had brought us there?

One of the inaugural gigs of the TLS band, "Spirit of Play".

It has been a closely guarded secret (closely guarded from me, at any rate) that three TLS editors, our ad-man and a contributor were getting together a band at the cutting edge of geek-rock -- and writing songs whose lyrics were as brilliant an witty as you would expect from such a group. You can listen here.

The line-up is: Michael Caines, Lucy Dallas, Jonathan Drummond, Will Eaves and Tom Woolfenden.

 So, if you fancy a band whose day jobs include novel writing or editing out all those non-TLS-style Oxford commas, why not hire Spirit of Play? I foresee a great future for them -- if not in the charts (but here's hoping) then at least in the niche market of Oxbridge balls and the trendier literary festivals. If you want to make a booking, I'm told that the man to go to is Caines: michael.caines@the-tls.co.uk.

And the verdict on last night's performance? The elderly geek-rockers there deemed the show A+ (if a trifle loud).