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The Who‘s Pete Townshend believes that his late friend and bandmate Keith Moon once bought dinner in Seattle for a nine-year-old Kurt Cobain.

This intriguing anecdote was relayed second-hand during an interview that Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard conducted with Jesse David Fox, from New York Magazine’s online entertainment hub Vulture.

Gibbard shared a conversation that he had with Townshend backstage at the 2006 staging of the Oxegen festival at Punchestown Racecourse in County Kildare, Ireland. On the day, July 8, 2006 to be precise, Gibbard and original Death Cab For Cutie guitarist Chris Walla were hanging out with the legendary guitarist in his trailer, and the American musicians informed Townshend that they were from Seattle, and that they had actually shared some mutual friends, namely the members of Pearl Jam.

“He kinda takes a moment, and goes, ‘Yeah, I remember, we were playing in Seattle in the 70s, and we were staying at the Edgewater Inn, and there were all these homeless kids, [living] underneath the viaduct there’,” Gibbard says, recalling Townshend’s story. “‘And Keith Moon, he brings them in to the Edgewater Inn, and he serves them all dinner. And I swear to you that one of those kids was Kurt Cobain’.

“And Walla, and I just look at each other, and we’re like, ‘What, man?'” Gibbard continues. “And in no world are we gonna correct this guy. There’s a couple of other people in the trailer, and they’re like, ‘Wow!’ And Walla and I are, like – exchanging looks – ‘We’re gonna talk about this when we leave this trailer, right?’ And it was amazing.

“And I do believe he believed that,” Gibbard concludes. “I was too nervous to correct him. I mean, I don’t know how [Cobain] got from Aberdeen [Washington] at 10 years old to Seattle, and under the viaduct. It’s possible, I suppose, but unlikely, I’d say.”

So could the story actually be true? Well, as Keith Moon passed away on September 7, 1978, and The Who’s final Seattle shows with the drummer took place on March 25, 1976, and October 14, 1976, at the city’s Seattle Center Coliseum, Kurt Cobain would have been nine years old at the time.

In writer Michael Azerrad’s official Nirvana biography Come As You Are, the band’s frontman claimed that in 1985, after being forced to vacate his rented apartment in Aberdeen due to falling behind on payments, he spent some time living underneath the North Aberdeen Bridge, which crosses the Wishkah River. This, he told his biographer, inspired the opening lyric of Nevermind classic Something In The Way.

Cobain’s story was certainly memorable, but it was also bullshit, as Michael Azerrad later learned, total myth-making on Cobain’s part. And if Cobain was lying about living under a bridge in his hometown aged 17, I think we can safely say that there’s zero chance that he was living under a bridge in Seattle, 175 kilometres from his home town, at the age of nine.

Like Ben Gibbard though, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever call out Pete Townshend on this face-to-face.

Doom metal bills don’t come bigger than this. Hell, doom gigs don’t come much bigger than this: Acid Bath’s first-ever UK show in a sold out 2,600-capacity Manchester Academy with homegrown heroes Conan and Green Lung – who’ll headline this same venue later this year – in support. It’s massive, it’s exciting and it’s a miracle it’s even happening.

When Acid Bath broke up in 1997 following the tragic death of bassist Audie Pitre, they were lucky if they could play to more than 10 people, guitarist Sammy Duet telling Hammer last year that “While we were together, nobody really gave a shit.” But in their absence, the fondness grew.

Which brings us to Manchester Academy, on the hottest day of the year, watching the hottest reunion in metal right now. The room’s already a furnace when Conan take to the stage, the Liverpudlian brutes issuing some ungodly force that takes New Orleans sludge metal and drags it so far and deep it ends up suffocating under a tonne of lumpen riffs.

Next up are UK doom darlings Green Lung. New tunes Evil In This House and Necropolitan Line have the kind of killer hooks and swaggering riffs that could make them into a real breakout band, while the likes of Mountain Church, Let The Devil In and One For Sorrow are already well-worn anthems.

Before Acid Bath arrive, Black Sabbath’s genre-defining eponymous track plays over the PA, and there doesn’t seem to be a soul in the house who isn’t singing along. It sets a tone, and as the bonus poem tones ominously overhead casting vivid, violent images with just a few lines of apocalyptic poetry. Then all hell breaks loose.

Opening with Tranquilized, the Manchester Academy greets Acid Bath with an orgiastic frenzy as the floor explodes with moshers, dancers and crowdsurfers while cups fly overhead offering sweet – if all too small – relief from the clammy press. This is doom set through a psychedelic prism and enough ecstasy and performance enhancers to get Hugh Heffner bouncing back from the grave.

Even the slow, brutal drag of a song like Bleed Me An Ocean becomes a euphoric sing-along, fans singing along with such fervour you’d think someone was handing out hymn sheets at the door. There’s no corny patter, no insistence on “give us a circle”. The crowd hardly needs encouragement to lose their minds, and the band play with a brooding intensity befitting their status as long-lost legends, vocalist Dax Riggs channelling Jim Morrison via Jim Jones.

At just over an hour, Acid Bath leave the crowd wanting more – inevitably. Some of their biggest ‘hits’ – Scream Of The Butterfly, Cassie Eats Cockroaches – are left out. But the mix of bad-trip psych, end-of-life blues and guttural sludge is just too potent not to love, and when the crowd belt out “Dying felt so goddamn good today” from Paegan Love Song, there’s a sense of overwhelming gratitude that Acid Bath are even back at all, let alone bigger than ever. Doom metal has never felt so utterly euphoric.

Acid Bath support System Of A Down in the UK on July 13 and July 15.

Acid Bath Manchester Academy Setlist June 25 2026

1. Tranquilized
2. Bleed Me An Ocean
3. Venus Blue
4. The Bones Of Baby Dolls
5. Dead Girl
6. The Mortician’s Flame
7. New Death Sensation
8. Graveflower
9. Paegan Love Song
10. The Blue

This week in the World Cup of rock, Parker Barrow romped to victory at the top of the group, while Alex Henry Foster and Beth Hart both went through to the knockout stage. What’s more, VAR wasn’t required once. So congratulations to all of them.

This week, another eight teams will take to the field, and that’s the last laboured football analogy you’ll hear from us. Keep hydrated, y’all.

Pieces Of Molly – Alligator

Kiwi rock’n’rollers Pieces Of Molly are back with another single from their upcoming album, and hallelujah. For Alligator is a masterclass in no-fucks-given chaos, careening along in a righteous, headlong rush towards damnation, a trail of spent pistons in its wake, gang vocals giving the chorus a degree of singalong friendliness at odds with the pandemonium elsewhere and an utterly savage guitar solo. A word of caution: the video is not vegetarian-friendly.

Green Lung – Necropolitan Line

Doomy heavy metal Londoners rock the bejeezus out of this rip-roaring cut from their forthcoming album, Necropolitan. One of the punchiest tracks on said record, which promises to offer the most fun you can have in the name of historic cemeteries (seven noted sites in London, to be precise). Plus they look and sound like they’re having a total blast in this artfully, lovably lo-fi video – all swirling psychedelic backdrops and face-melting performances. Nice.

Bad Nerves – Network

Midway through a breakneck year, in which they’ve pogoed between continents at a phenomenal pace – as both headliners and support band – Essex’s finest power-pop punks release their heaviest track yet. Still fast, still furious and now with a darker heart, guitars are newly beefed up and stretched out over three turbocharged minutes, without losing the lightness of touch that made them such a charismatic prospect in the first place.

These Wicked Rivers – Horse To Water

And now for a lovely summery, loose-limbed barrelful of southern rock’n’roll by way of Derby – complete with stylishly granny-chic helpings of paisley, lampshades, bolo ties, serious hats and various other visual accoutrements of the TWR miniverse. Imagine rocking up at a BBQ with Blackberry Smoke, armed with a cooler of beers, at sunset, and you’re in the right space for Horse To Water.

The Meffs – Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Perhaps our favourite slice so far of the Essex punks’ second album, Business (coming out in September), Where Did It All Wrong? rides on a rolling tide of powerful, light-footed drums and buzzsaw guitars. Catchy and appetisingly enraged, with a voice to match – courtesy of peroxide-headed singer/guitarist Lily. Going to one of the Joan Jett & The Blackhearts UK shows this week? Get there early and catch these guys, who’ll be supporting.

Radio Everything – Ignoramus Stupidatus

This came out on one of the hottest days of the year so far, and it offered the sort of bright, zingy boost equal only to a freezerful of Fab lollies. Or some quality time in a supermarket chiller aisle. But yes, the latest tune from Chris Catalyst’s gleefully daft cartoon robot metal side project thing is a banger – light, bright pop rock with the expansiveness and urgency of Devin Townsend and lyrics full of incisive disenchantment at the world today. And what says ‘happy summer!’ more than that?

Bywater Call – Is This Thing On?

Built on delicate acoustic guitars, percussive beats and cascades of strings punctuated by lead fiddle touches, the Canadian rock n’ soul ensemble’s latest is stripped-back without sacrificing the lushness that seems to imbue all their work. Fancy more of that soulful Americana, with healthy echoes of Tedeschi Trucks Band in its sound and overall spirit? Their new album, Broken Souvenirs, comes out in July.

Return to Dust – Sweet Escape

This year, we’ve heard a lot of new music from bands whose sound seems almost entirely informed by bands that peaked in the first half of the 1970s, but LA rockers Return To Dust are not among them. Instead, Sweet Escape sounds like it emerged from the Puget Sound murk in the early 90s, with moody Alice in Chains riffing matched by a vocal from Matty Bielawski that could go head-to-head with Layne Staley at his most dramatic. The band’s debut headline London show next month is already sold out, and grunge, it would appear, is very much back.