his writing of Tommy. The Pretty Things and several critics disagree with The Who. In Rolling Stone, Lester Bangs termed it "an ultra-pretentious concept album, complete with strained 'story' (A Man's Life from rural birth to Prodigal's Oliver Twist freakout), like some grossly puerile cross between the Bee Gees, Tommy, and the Moody Blues" – "who should be shot for what they've done to English rock lyrics." The American version of the album was poorly mastered (with a one channel volume drop on "Baron Saturday" running over 30 seconds), it was not well promoted by Motown. The redesigned album sleeve also hurt sales: the artwork was entirely different, and on early copies the jacket had a rounded top, such rounding could cause the album to be unseen, causing potential buyers browsing through album racks to miss it. Live performances Shortly after the album's release in 1968, the band attempted to perform the album onstage at Middle Earth Club in London. It was by all accounts a strange show which featured the band miming to the EMI backing tracks. Each member also played various characters; Twink played Sorrow while wearing a leotard, white face make up and indulging in his penchant for mime. After that, a handful of songs from the album became part of their typical live set notably "She Says Good Morning", "Balloon Burning" and "Old Man Going". On 6 September 1998, the line up who recorded the original album – excepting Twink – returned to Abbey Road Studio 2 to perform a fully live version of the album for one of the first netcasts. Joining them were Arthur Brown who provided the narration, David Gilmour who added lead guitar parts on a handful of songs, Skip Alan's son Dov on percussion, Frank Holland on guitar and vocals and manager Mark St. John on percussion. The ensemble performed to a specially invited audience of friends and family. The netcast server was quickly overloaded so barely anyone got to see it live as intended. The show was recorded on tape and video. Resurrection was released months later featuring the soundtrack, and a DVD of the show was finally released in 2003. The same ensemble performed the show again this time to a paying public at The Royal Festival Hall in London on 19 October 2001. Plans to perform the show in Paris and America never came to fruition and neither