Famous ice cream vans in music extend to… the KLF and that’s about it. Except now we can add London math-rock band Black Midi to that (very short) list.

As London melted under record-breaking (for all the wrong reasons) temperatures on 19th July, hitting a terrifying 40 degrees, the band used the roasting weather to promote their latest album, the appropriately named Hellfire.

The band announced on their Instagram account, “We’ll be running an ice cream van in London today, it’s gonna be at Soho square [sic] at 5pm and Peckham Rye Park at 7pm – if you’re in the area come and get an ice cream and other fun stuff – water pistols compulsory.”

Termed the Ice Cream Van Tour, the band had also contacted people on their mailing list to say that free ice cream would be handed out to fans who bought any records, flexi-discs or merchandise from the van (including limited-edition T-shirts, which were really just surplus stock from their show at Somerset House in central London the previous week).

There was obviously great serendipity in the fact that their album was called Hellfire and launched just as the UK heatwave started. The ice cream van was all branded up with the band’s name and the album cover artwork, so had been planned well in advance, but the timing could not have been more perfect.

That said, the weather was so hot that there were government health warnings for people to avoid travel if it was at all possible, so the number of people showing up to either of the locations would be naturally reduced.

The only thing missing was them capitalising on this even more by rush-recording a cover of Martha Reeves & The Vandellas’ ‘(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave’ with Glass Animals’ ‘Heat Waves’ on the b-side.