A 'beautiful' gesture that mattered a lot

Breaking barriers

The star singer took the stage on Sunday at the Palace Grounds as part of the ‘Venky’s Akon Live In Concert Tour’.

The show started on a low note as there were no opening acts except for a DJ who spun a few international chartbusters.

Post this, the crowd expected Akon to come on stage but that didn’t happen for another hour and the crowd had to make do with a few more recorded tracks.

When he finally came on stage at 9 pm, the anxiously awaiting audience was ecstatic. Never mind the wait! The Palace Grounds turned into the biggest dance floor as he started with his hit ‘Konvicted’ and went on to perform ‘Sunrise’.

“Make a peace sign,” he requested his fans as he rendered ‘Soul Survivor’ and made the crowd sing ‘Ghetto’ as he performed the song. Then there was no looking back as the singer belted out one hit after the other — ‘Sorry Put The Blame On Me’, ‘Lonely’ and even played the congo to add an Afro touch to his love ballad ‘Don’t Matter’.

He performed ‘Dangerous’ referring to a “crazy girl”. “But I know what to tell bad girls,” he added. The crowd screamed as it knew the answer — ‘I Wanna Love You’. “What’s with the people behind the gate? What section is that,” he asked referring to his fans standing far away. Asking them to break the barricade and come in front, he said, “In my show, everybody is first class so come to the front and I will pay for you.”

After taking a short break, he did some crazy stunts that left the audience bewildered. Performing inside a zorb ball, he ran straight into the audience who rolled him up and around.

Later, as he sang ‘Taking It Off’, he took his shirt off and started swinging it. He dared the audience to do the same if they were the craziest party animals in the country and not surprisingly, most of them followed suit! Then he jumped into the crowd and even taught them the tactics to carry him.

“I will tell you how it works. When I jump into the crowd, you pull me up. If you pull me down, then we all go down,” he exclaimed. He even doused them generously with bottles of water. After this he performed ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Right Now’, songs from his third album ‘Freedom’. 

And his fans, especially the young girls, couldn’t have asked for more.
“I am his biggest fan and this is the best show ever. Though I was a bit disappointed that he came late, I totally enjoyed it,” said Dhriti, a student, who knew the lyrics of all his songs and was singing along through out.