Relive what had transpired in a rather festive and out-of-this-world show, befitting the name of the Thai K-pop artist’s Manila concert, “AREA 52”.
Bambam, a member of the world-renowned K-pop group GOT7, returned to Manila after a year for his world tour “AREA 52“. He held his concert last September 22nd at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Filipino “Ahgases”, or GOT7 fans, were over the moon during concert day and even arrived early at the venue, all eager to see Bambam. The Ahgases were all geared up with their Bambam and GOT7 merchandise, and some even brought their light sticks!
To open the show, the K-pop girl group, DreamNote, opened the curtain for Bambam’s concert with their bubbly and feel-good tracks “Broken” followed by “Lemonade”. Fans cheered for them like how they eventually did for Bambam.
Then, the lights went out and screams filled the coliseum. Then, an astonishing satellite intro video of Bambam exploring space is played, and the show starts. Bambam kicked it off with his hits “Wheels Up”, “Pandora”, “Sour & Sweet”, “Ride or Die”, “Let’s Dance”, and a rendition of his hit song with Red Velvet member Kang Seulgi, “Who Are You”.
Bambam introduced himself shortly after the set with the lines “Hi, It’s Bambam from GOT7”, which meant so much to every Ahgase inside the stadium. He then asked the fans if they were having fun, to which the crowd responded with a loud “Yes”! He delightfully complimented the crowd and said “It’s full of energy here in Manila. Thank you”. The fans then cheered on him even more!
After giving a warm welcome to everybody in the stadium, he asked the crowd if they already knew what Area 52 meant. Seeing that some of the people don’t know, he explained the meaning of the name of his concert tour, “Area 52“.
Bambam then explained that Area 52 came from a place in America, called Area 51. In the so-called area, people believed that there were UFO sightings in the place, a topic that Bambam really loves which inspired the concept of the show. And since he was born on May 02 which is 05/02, he decided to name the show Area 52. He hyped up the crowd who were already ecstatic by saying “This show is for everybody to enjoy, if you guys wanna scream if you guys wanna dance, do whatever you want!” and asked his fans if they could party with him ‘till the end, to which the crowd responded with a loud and banging “yes”!
After the set, he performed the song “Take It Easy” for the very first time in Manila, followed by “Ghost”. He then surprised Filipino Ahgases by singing his most-awaited version of “Raining In Manila” by the Filipino band Lola Amour, a performance the fans really enjoyed that they made him sing it twice! And of course, the very humble Bambam obliged his precious fans’ request.
Who would have thought that Bambam’s surprise for everybody was done? It wasn’t! Sandara Park, also known as Dara, came out on stage with 2NE1’s hit song “I Am The Best”! She then told everybody that Filipino Ahgases are special because Bambam even prepared a Tagalog song for everyone and asked the crowd “Nagustuhan niyo ba?” and when the crowd answered “Yes” she said, “Nagustuhan ko rin ‘yon!” She then ran back to the main stage to perform her new song “Dara Dara” followed by her remake of the 90’s Korean pop song “Festival”, to which Bambam appeared towards the end of the song and danced together with his ate Dara.
After the song, Bambam said “I should call you “ati” to which Dara corrected him and said, “ate”. “Call me ate Dara” she continued, and Bambam said that he doesn’t know what “ate” means. Then Dara explained that “ate” means “noona” in Korean which means older sister. Bambam then thanked her for coming with him to his Manila leg of the tour, and even teased her by calling her “Auntie Dara”.
Dara also thanked Bambam for having her on the tour. She stated that she missed the Philippines and wanted to be back with him. She then changed her outfit, then the two danced to SB19’s hit song “Gento”. And of course, it isn’t a Manila leg of a concert tour if they didn’t ask you to do it twice! And you guessed it right! The crowd cheered “isa pa” which means one more. “You guys made me sing ‘Raining in Manila, twice’ and now, you are gonna make me dance ‘Gento’ with ate Dara twice”, Bambam stated. “Yes, that is Manila,” Dara said. Bambam then told the Filipino Ahgases that they were winning, and he was absolutely right! Then the two of them danced to Gento one more time!
The fans couldn’t get enough of their performances and asked Dara to perform one more time to which she obliged and performed the 2023 version of her iconic song “In Or Out”. Dara then asked Bambam to dance to the chorus of “In Or Out” with her when the song was nearing its end, and the two looked so cute dancing together, which the fans loved! After the performance, Dara thanked everyone before leaving the stage. And before continuing the show Bambam thanked Dara and Blackjacks for coming to his show and enjoying the performances.
Bambam said that Dara made him love the Philippines so much and that’s why Manila is the first stop of his tour. He prepared another surprise by doing a raffle of ten people who are going to take a 1:1 photo with him backstage! But the fans couldn’t get enough so they asked him for more which made him pick five more, but the crowd again clamored for more and he actually picked one last winner! Bambam must love his Filipino Ahgases so much that he picked sixteen lucky winners for the 1:1 photo op with him! We love a fan service king!
He proceeded with the show and performed “Tippy Toe” and “Air”. He then thanked everybody for coming to his show. But then, he came back to the stage for a memorable encore and kicked it off with GOT7’s hit song “Look”! Everybody loved and enjoyed it! He then followed through with “Hard Carry”, which is probably one of the anthems of every Ahgase. But Filipino fans couldn’t have enough and asked him for one last encore song. Bambam then asked the crowd to sing with him before singing his version of the Tagalog song “Ngiti” by local artist Ronnie Liang. After the song, he thanked everyone for coming and wished for their safety, before going home.
Everything was well prepared, from the concept, and the performances, down to the stage setup and costumes! It was truly an unforgettable night that everybody in the coliseum, not only the fans but also the artists enjoyed! We hope that Bambam will come back again to Manila and we hope that next time, he will bring his team GOT7 with him as well! We will wait until then, Bambam!
Thank you so much to IME Asia for bringing such a spectacular show to Manila for Filipino Ahgases!
