TORONTO -- Watching the inimitable Ben Harper in concert you keep wondering -- no, make that hoping -- when the brilliant axman will get up offa his blanket-covered chair.

See, the young California-based singer-songwriter, who can adroitly play any guitar -- from a standard acoustic to an antique Weissenborn -- you place in his hands, remains seated throughout his spiritualized shows.

Thing is, the music he makes packs so much passion and spirit and wallop you're left puzzled as to why he doesn't prance about like his contemporaries. Put it this way, he's the furthest thing from the whirling dervish that is Alanis Morissette.

Where, you ask yourself, is that energy being channeled?

And here we come to the beauty of seeing Ben Harper live. The energy manifests itself in the wizardry in his fingers and in a voice that grabs your heart and squeezes ever so softly.

To expect Harper to jump around, then, is to completely miss the point. Like his songs, Harper boasts a quiet energy and intensity. And that's what resonates with anyone who stumbles upon his records.

Those of us who witnessed him open for the then-unknown Fugees about four years back had to pick our jaws up off the floor when his set was done. The few hundred of us who saw him then knew that we'd witnessed something special.

It wasn't Harper's clever mix of folk and blues and psychedelic rock that dazzled a capacity crowd of 2,500 at the sad excuse for a concert hall that is the Warehouse. It was the heart with which the tender ballads and rockers that have the capacity to kick a hole in your chest were executed.

Drawing from his four albums, Harper and the Innocent Criminals treated his young audience with cuts like Oppression, Faded, By My Side, the Rolling Stones-ish Burn To Shine, Please Bleed, Ground On Down, and Fight For Your Mind.

Predictably, Burn One Down, which celebrates marijuana, got one of the loudest responses and Harper had your sons and daughters singing the line, "If you don't like my fire then don't come around 'cause I'm gonna burn one down."

What else makes Harper stand apart from his contemporaries?

He thanked everyone from his string technician to his road manager to the lighting crew -- by name -- during a break between songs.

When was the last time you heard someone do that at a concert?

Thought not.

JAM! Rating: 4 out of 5