ISL 2015 Opening Ceremony: Alia and Aishwarya sparkle, but Rajinikanth and Sachin Tendulkar steal the show

After a couple of "ok this is an Opening Ceremony, so we need a few performances phase," the Indian Super League 2015 Opening Ceremony hit another stratosphere in terms of voice levels as two of India's greatest icons took stage.

The Chennaiyin FC home crowd has always been vocal, but when you have Rajinikanth and Sachin Tendulkar gracing the same stage in front of 15,000-20,000 people, expect those noise levels to hit pitches humans previously didn't realise existed.

It is now official folks! The ISL 2015 season is up and running.

After a few hundred kids unfurled the team banners of all the eight teams of the ISL out on the pitch – choreographed wonderfully, it must be said -- it was Alia Bhatt time.

Alia, with a little help from the MC of the evening, Arjun Kapoor, kicked things off with a nice-little performance, dancing to some of her famous hits, which included "Radha" and "Disco Deewane" before finishing her performance up with the song that has been ringing in all our ears for the past couple of months "C'mon India, Let's Football."

Aishwarya Rai, with her husband Abhishek and father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan watching from the VIP section, then came and danced gracefully, with a Tamil number, particularly, cranking up that decibel level.

However, that decibel level had nothing on the one that came to the fore when Sachin first entered the Opening Ceremony stage, before reaching a level which probably burst the eardrums of some of the aliens on Mars – yes, we know they are there – as Rajinikanth made an entrance like only he can, riding around the stadium in a buggy, before strutting to the stage.

Nita Ambani then declared the second season open -- cue for the cheers to go up again – setting the tone perfectly for the opening match of the season -- Chennaiyin FC vs Atletico de Kolkata.

Before the start of that match, though, there was time for one more superstar to make his presence felt, as AR Rahman gave his rendition of the National Anthem, before setting Chennaiyin and Atletico on their way.