The 1976 Steve Miller Band track written specifically for Knebworth: “I needed a song”

Steve Miller Band's hit single "Rock 'N Me" was written under pressure ahead of the group's 1975 support slot at Pink Floyd's landmark Knebworth show, one of the biggest and most storied gigs in British rock history. Facing a crowd of over 100,000 people and feeling his existing catalogue wasn't strong enough for the occasion, Steve Miller set himself the challenge of writing a song capable of holding such a huge audience's attention, resulting in a track built around an instantly catchy riff and vocal hook.

Miller has said he needed "a song that would be really good" for the concert, and "Rock 'N Me" was performed live for the first time at that Knebworth show before closing the set. The song, which Miller has acknowledged borrows from the intro of Free's "All Right Now", was released as a single later in 1976 and became a major radio hit, going on to be one of the Steve Miller Band's best-known songs alongside "The Joker" and "Abracadabra".