Ben Harper has never been afraid of showing off his influences, and this generous live set is no exception. On the electric band jams on Disc One and solo acoustic turns on Disc Two, it's no secret when he's channeling Jeff Buckley's otherworldly rock ("Woman in You"), Cat Stevens' Elizabethan folk ("Pleasure and Pain"), the Jackson 5's bubble funk ("Steal My Kisses") or Led Zeppelin's Gaelic metal excess ("Glory and Consequence"). But because Harper's range is so broad and his technical ability beyond that of so many of his peers, he and his Innocent Criminals can even cover Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing," the Verve's "The Drugs Don't Work" and Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" without sounding like a bar band with an identity problem. This chameleon sounds most like himself when playing straight from the heart: The intensity with which he cries out "Please Bleed" is reason enough to grant the man a little karaoke.

“The Pretender”

This song wasn't part of the planned track listing for 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and was put together in a day. "It happened after we recorded a lot of stuff," said Dave Grohl. Yet it ended up as the album opener and the lead single. Grohl called it "a stomping Foo Fighters uptempo song with a little bit of Chuck Berry in it." The singer hinted at the lyrics' political overtones: "Everyone's been f---ed over before and I think a lot of people feel f---ed over right now and they're not getting what they were promised."