If you were a child of the 1970s or 1980s, the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (let’s not talk about the poor cartoon series spin-off) may have featured heavily in your life for a period, with its orcs, half-elves and polyhedral dice.

For John Darnielle of Mountain Goats (and a growing crowd of renaissance fanatics) that fantasy world was never fully packed away.

He remains a huge fan of both Dungeons & Dragons as well as trading card/digital collectable card game Magic: The Gathering, both of which are owned by games developer Wizards Of The Coast. The games have been a direct influence on the novels Darnielle writes as well as the new album by his band, the aptly named In League With Dragons, due for release in late April.

To bring all these worlds, and digital technology, together, Mountain Goats played a show at the Wizards Of The Coast offices in Renton, Washington, on 28th January. It was live-streamed on the official Facebook pages for Mountain Goats, Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons as well as on Twitch.

The 48-minute broadcast saw Darnielle being interviewed about his love of fantasy gaming as well as his new album before giving an acoustic performance in front of a giant dragon statue.

Gaming has been a large part of marketing for a number of years, with acts jumping onto Twitch to play and also promote their music as well as having been involved in music-centric console games Rock Band and Guitar Hero and music-based mobile games such as Tap Tap Revenue. The rise of esports is taking the music/games connection to the next stage in its evolution (as seen with companies like Universal Music investing heavily, as well as the Marshmello/ Fortnite deal), but it is nice to see Darnielle to go old-school here and show his love for games that are interactive without the need for headsets and Wi-Fi connections.