Block your agendas for the next two months, because movies are making way for IPL 5. The fifth edition of T20 cricket kicked off on the 3rd of April with a huge opening ceremony, which was held at the YMCA Collega of Physical Education in front on 15,000 spectators. There was some Bollywood masala, South Indian mithaai and it ended with some international flavour.
The evening started off with none other than the living legend Amitabh Bachchan, who was anxiously waiting for days to perform again in front of a live audience. After two abdominal surgeries earlier this year, Big B was clearly enjoying this. The 69-year old actor started the evening with a rendition of a poem ‘If I were to be born again’ which was written by renowned lyricist Prasoon Joshi. After that he took to the stage to perform with Shiamak Davar’s dancetroupe. A dissapointing performance.
After Big B, it was time for some music. South African percussion band First Project, composer DJ Ravi Drums and Colonial Cousins took the stage and made us all dance to their tunes. The songs sounded awesome and definitely got your head banging.
Then it was time for one of Bollywood’s top actress and dancer to take over the stage. It is always a pleasure to watch Priyanka Chopra dance and entertain. She danced to the songs of Don, Don 2 and Kaminey. She even made cricketer Harbhajan Singh dance with her on Dhan Te Nan. Later on, the 29-year old actress later danced on stage to the song Nakka Mukka with the Chennai Super Kings.
And of course, when the opening ceremony is being held in Chennai, you simply cannot forget to add the South Indian flavour called Prabhu Deva. The choreographer/filmmaker burned the stage with his energy, unique dancestyle and entertained one and all with songs like Jalwa, Main Aisa Kyun Hoon and Muqabala.
Kareena Kapoor performed to her most recent hits Chammak Challo, Dil Mera Muft Ka, I’ll Do The Talking and even Pyaar Ki Pungi. The performance unfortunately lacked power.
And last but not least, Dabangg Khan, Salman entered the stage. But what was he wearing? That was the question on everybody’s mind. Salman was wearing Pink Pants! And apparently I was not the only one surprised about that. Farah Ali Khan tweeted: “Ok I do love Salman Khan but if I were him I would sack my stylist ASAP. Pink pants at the DLF IPL opening ceremony.” She added: “Would have preferred seeing Salman “bare chested”. Definitely not in “pink” pants!!!”
Salman performed to a number of foot-tapping songs which variated from Munni Badnaam, Dhinka Chika to Partner. There was even a remix of his hitsong Oh Oh Jaane Jaana and Character Dheela, which sounded quite awesome. Unfortunately we cannot say the same of the choreography and performance as a whole.
The ceremony ended with the star attraction of the evening, Katy Perry. She sang some of her hits such as Teenage Dream, California Girls and Fireworks, after which a dazzling show of fireworks lit up the evening sky.
IPL5 will start tomorrow with the first match being between Chennai Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians; MS Dhoni vs Sachin Tendulkar. Let the Games Begin!
