IF you had expected trouble from Akon at the Akon Freedom Beach Concert, well, sorry to disappoint. The Senegalese-American singer infamous for “tossing-fan-offstage” and “gyrating-with-girls-onstage” kept the antics to a minimum during his third visit to this country, entertaining the crowd with only hit songs and high-octane energy.

Despite the drizzle last Saturday, over 15,000 fans filled the Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach in Selangor for the 8pm concert and one hour later, they were still screaming to an empty stage.

With a lot of persuasion from the emcees, the crowd then managed to muster some support for opening acts Nikki and Caprice, who honestly would’ve sounded better if not for the initially wonky sound system.

Well, the technical crew must have worked on the glitches because when Akon stepped on stage in an all-black ensemble to deliver Shakedown, his opening song, the drizzle had stopped and he sounded perfect.

Water works: Akon was literally hot that night.

In fact, he was pitch-perfect throughout the 90-minute show, most probably because he was pulling a Britney now and then. If you had closed your eyes and stood still for a couple of seconds, it would have felt as if you were back home, lying in bed and listening to Akon on your MP3 player.

That said, Akon did sing some of his songs live and from what one could hear, he put his heart and soul in delivering the notes.

But of course his diehard fans didn’t care how he was singing; all they cared for were which of his hits he was performing.

The crowd bounced and sang along to hits such as We Takin Over, Soul Survivor, Hustler’s Story, Ghetto and Akon’s all-time hit Smack That.

Fans waiting for the Chipmunk-inspired Lonely had to settle for Akon’s homage to his two protege Colby O’Donis and Lady Gaga’s What You Got and Just Dance, respectively.

As the show progressed, Akon stripped down to his signature white singlet and eventually tossed even that sweat-drenched, most probably designer-labelled, piece to a lucky fan.

Between song transitions, the 32-year-old singer imparted life and love lessons to the crowd which somewhat agreed to every scenario and experience he shared on stage.

“If you’re at a restaurant and she’s ordering expensive food and ends up paying for it herself using her credit card, then she’s an independent woman and you’re just an ornament. It’s time for you to move on because she’s too dangerous for you,” said Akon before launching into his song titled Dangerous.

Akon crowd-surfed during the concert, much to his fans' delight.

The singer managed to keep the audience hyped throughout the show, and even got them to chant his name.

He had the crowd going wild when he unexpectedly dove into them and rode the wave before being pulled back on stage by his minders.

He crowd surfed a few times before announcing that he wanted to prove the existence of unity and one world (he must have heard about 1Malaysia) right there and then.

“Everybody put your hands up. I want you to help me to get to the other end of the stage,” he said before diving into them and Dollar Bill was put on repeat.

It became a little chaotic when eager fans wanted to get in on the action and rushed to the singer, all hoping to say “OMG, I touched Akon,” to anyone willing to listen.

The good news is that no one was hurt and the singer managed to get to almost the end of the stage before being stopped by, well, empty space.

Security personnels decided that it was enough surfing on Akon’s part before ushering him back on stage to say goodbye to the fans.

The singer graciously thanked his fans for showing up and then left the stage to party the night away, as fans scrambled all over the place trying to figure their way out of the dimly-lit theme park.