FANZONE » Encounters of the Ash-Kind » Breathless 2004 in Chicago, Illinois


by Marilyn De Leon


About two and a half years after the Craze 2001 show, I have had the luck to experience the same feeling I felt on that day but probably about 100 times better. On May 7, 2004 I went to the Breathless Heartthrobs show in Chicago with Sheneeza. We had a lot of disappointments, but I will get straight to the point. The show overall was awesome and all of the performances were very well done and entertaining, however, they couldn't compare to the best performance of the night, the goddess herself, "The most beautiful woman in the world" as they call her, Aishwarya Rai.

It's kind of hard to believe that I saw her AGAIN from the front row AGAIN and as expected she looked beyond gorgeous. Let's just say words can't describe what she looks like face to face. She's definitely one of a kind.

I was staring at the stage as they were putting up the props for her Devdas performance, and I felt like my heart was going to pop out through my skin. Finally, after the long introduction, when her name was announced and I saw her on stage, I turned into the same wild child that was at the Craze show, but this time it was much more exciting.

She started off with a couple of songs from Devdas (Silsila Yeh Chaat Ka and Dola Re dola). Coincidentally they happen to be my favorite songs from Devdas and watching her perform those songs live was just incredible. Despite her foot injury she still has so much energy and I can still say she is by far the best dancer I've ever seen in my entire life.

After the Devdas bit, she decided to take a few minutes and say some kind words to her fans or "well wishers" as she calls them. She is such a sweet heart, she really made it known that even though she doesn't know any of us personally, we're always a big part of her life because of our support. While she was speaking I was having a hard time controlling myself because she's just so sweet and so gorgeous and just perfect in every single way possible, so I just HAD to scream. What was even funnier is that I think Sheneeza had a bit of a hard time controlling herself as well, so it was the two of us screaming and shouting "Ash!" while the rest of the stadium was quiet. In fact we were so loud that we caught her attention and she looked directly at us and waved. I think that alone was the best moment ever LOL! Her stare can make anyone faint and the fact that she waved at US was the coolest thing.

During her speech she also brought up her "crossover" to English films and of course we cheered for that, she looked at us again and giggled, you know, that silly giggle she does when she doesn't know what else to say, it was so cute! When she came out again for her second performance, she looked beautiful again as always, but this time she was with Hrithik and I think that was probably my favorite performance. It was so different to see them sort of "romance" each other on stage, since they don't have any films together to this day, but they look SO great together! At once point their faces get really close and it looks as if they're about to kiss and Ash suddenly gets shy and walks away. It was the cutest thing ever; they just look so nice together. During that bit they performed to a bunch of different songs and during one of the songs, she noticed us screaming and cheering for her (yet again) and she winked at us. That was just adorable!

Towards the end of the show during the finale bit, she looked stunning as always and we couldn't stop screaming every time she would come out and perform. I think the part where we screamed the most was when she came out to perform Ishq Kamina. I love that song and it was just awesome to see her dance to it live. I can't think of anybody else that can dance as good as her or better. We had a GREAT view as well, she was right in front of us and for those of you who think she doesn't look as pretty in person or anything like that, I still say you need your eyes checked. The woman is a million times more beautiful face to face than she is in the movies; her eyes, her smile, everything is just beautiful!

At the very end of the show as she was saying goodbye along with Hrithik we managed to get her attention AGAIN and she waved for the 2nd time so we were even happier because of that. This might sound bad but I think we honestly made her day because we were the loudest people there, and it was just the two of us. I guess that's what happens when you have to hardcore Aish fans together looking at her LOL!

We tried our best to get an even closer glimpse of her as she was entering and leaving the stadium but unfortunately none of that worked out. I'm assuming she might have arrived late to the stadium because we were out there for so long up until almost 9 pm which was when the show was scheduled to start, and as I expected the show started a bit later. We tried it again after the show but eventually we were pretty much kicked out by one of the cops guarding the backstage area and needless to say, we were VERY disappointed!

Despite all that I'm still happy because at least I got to see her again and she has surprised me yet again like always. She's not just beautiful but she's very talented and aside from that she is the kindest person out there. The way she described how she feels about her fans was very touching, I know it sounds silly but she was really sweet about that, and she thanked us over and over again.

The rest of the show was also very entertaining. Hrithik looked HOT and I mean hotter than ever!!! He has such a sexy body I thought I was seriously going to have heart failure. However I don't want to get into that too much because something happened during his performance that pissed me off, so I'll move along to the rest. Celina's performance was cute, she's VERY thin but also pretty and she can dance pretty well. I haven't seen any of her films so I can't really comment on her acting, but as far as dancing goes, she's good. Lara looked GREAT! She's also very pretty and funny. She can dance really well also, but the bit I enjoyed the most with her was the Aisa Jadoo performance. It was a lot better than how it was in Khakee, and she looked really nice.

All of the outfits were interesting, the only ones I didn't like were the dancers' outfits because most of them were insane looking, but the stars' outfits were really cute.

Aish of course was the best there, but everyone did a very good job and I enjoyed the entire show. I'm still recovering over the fact that she waved at us AND winked, I guess that somewhat balances out the fact that we didn't get to meet her, even though it definitely can't compare to that. I just think seeing her was wonderful, and I'm happy just for that. I have said this a million times and I will keep saying this until the day that she proves it otherwise (which is impossible) AISHWARYA RAI IS THE WORLD'S GREATEST!!!!!!