American alternative rock band They Might Be Giants has been booked to play a one-off gig at the Cambridge Science Festival next week.

The band will perform a hybrid of family gig and science lesson on June 27th at The Charles Babbage Lecture Theatre. It is the first time in the University’s history that a rock band will play in one of its lecture halls.

The band is most famous for the Malcolm in the Middle theme song, ‘Boss of Me’, and for their 1990 chart hit ‘Birdhouse in your Soul’. Songs played by at the event will include ’Photosynthesis’, ‘My Brother The Ape’ and ‘Computer-Assisted Design’. The songs come from their 2009 children’s album ‘Here Comes Science’. The album also includes tracks called ‘Why Does the Sun Shine?’ and ‘Why Does the Sun Really Shine?’

Band manager Jamie Lincoln Kitman said: ‘’They Might Be Giants share the Cambridge Science Festival’s passion for science, and communicating science to kids (and adults).

‘’The process of putting on a rock gig like this in a fabled lecture theatre is a brave new horizon for us.

"Luckily we’ve benefited from the legacy of Babbage’s ‘difference engine’ to help get us to this moment in time."

Cambridge Science Festival organiser Shelley Bolderson commented: ‘’We’re always looking for innovative ways of inspiring kids to get into science. A live performance of Here Comes Science is the perfect way to do it.’’

‘Here Comes Science’ is the band’s fourteenth studio album and fourth children’s album. The band’s writer and singer, John Flasburgh, admitted while working on the album in 2008 that he had hired a scientific consultant to advise because he was "a terrible science student in high school. My last memory of the periodic table was right before I lost consciousness."