By Jason Yu
If there was a national Filipino Day in the Bay Area, it had to be on June 17, 2025. This is when Bini took San Francisco by storm on a breezy Tuesday in the city’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
Throngs of Filipinos from nearby Daly City, Vallejo, and San Jose filled the concert venue to see a group often called the “(Phillipines) Nation’s Girl Group.” Others traveled from farther away cities, such as Sacramento and Los Angeles to see the famed group.
The Blooms were in full bloom, ready to cheer on BINI and bring the energy of Filipino pop – also known as P-pop – to the Bay.
Bini, in turn, was ready to expand past the Phillipines and Asia. The members are already megastars in their home country, having numerous ads and billboards across the country, being featured in a Jollibee music video, and filling the entire 55,000 person capacity in Phillipine Arena.
The group’s latest EP, “Biniverse,” is their first to feature an all-English song list, a move that’s undoubtedly aimed towards the international market.
The crowd’s demographics also revealed a notable crossover with K-pop, as many attendees were fans of both genres. BINI’s musical style and choreography share several traits that naturally appeal to K-pop audiences.

Photo Credits: @marilynnnguyen
The concert kicked off with the opening act, Ashley Mehta. The half-Indian, half-Filipino was a solid pick to warm up the crowd, as she’s originally from the Bay Area. Several times during the opener, she embraced her Filipino roots, mentioning Filipino cuisine such as sigsig, and was proud to open for Bini. The pop, R&B singer brought the energy, vibing with the crowd with both energetic songs, as well as soothing, slower beats.
After Mehta’s 30 minute set, she bid adieu to make way for that night’s starlets: Bini.
The Bini Experience in the US
Fifteen minutes later, a video flashing Bini appeared to massive cheers. Bini would soon emerge after the video and performed right away.
Songs such as “I Feel Good” “Lagi,” and “Strings,” were played to a roaring crowd. “Shagidi” – which is a popular Filipino game where each person has to copy the dance of the previous person – brought back childhood memories to many in the audience who grew up in the Phillippines.
The girls also performed their major 2023 hits, “Pantropiko,” “Salamin, Salamin,” and “Karera,” to the approval of the increasing louder crowd. “Cherry on Top,” one of the group’s more groovy, slower, R&B-ish songs that broke through the global streaming charts, was performed, showing that the group can delve past their usual, upbeat pop tracks.
During their first speaking segment, the girls gave a shoutout to the Bay Area’s own TFC, or The Filipino channel. To anyone that’s a 90’s kid, the Filipino channel was one of the few platforms to see Filipino, or even Asian representation in the US. The Bini ladies proclaimed, “let’s celebrate the TFC’s 30th anniversary together” to the delight of the audience.
After the TFC call out, Bini gave a shout out to their label, ABS-CBN (which is also one of the major news networks in the Philippines).
One notable aspect of the concert was the absence of a translator during the speaking sessions. When the Bini ladies would switch over to Tagalog, the audience immediately understood and laughed and smiled with the dialogue. Since the majority of the audience were Filipinos, most of them already understood Bini when they switched to Tagalog, showing an obvious truth understood both to the group, as well as the audience.
The Bay Area had a ton of Filipinos here.
Throughout the concert, the ladies got philosophical on the audience. Speaking about their own idol journey, the members would put life in perspective by saying, “life is not a race.” Another profound quote from the Bini sages was “you love what you see,” referring to being happy when you see someone making you smile or laugh.
This laughing and smiling came when Bini played a quick game of “which section can cheer the loudest” that happens at a lot of Asian concerts, such as K-pop shows. Section 4, which was the right side, was going nuts, in particular, cheering wildly, waving their Bini light sticks, and knowing all the lyrics to each Bini song.
Props to Section 4 for going all out during the Bini concert the entire time.
To Bark or Not to Bark?
Barking was also a staple at the Bini concert. The Bay Area’s version of cheering and supporting their idols came out in full force after Bini finished each set of songs. Chants of barking showered the girls to the point where some of the Bini members started to mimic the barking themselves. The ladies often referred to the barking to a particular animal, saying “it reminds me of a monkey.”
For the past few years, Barking created a distinct form of K-pop culture here in the Bay, which often shocks, surprises, or adds laughter to the idol’s experiences here.
The Bad Camera Viewing Experience
While the Bini concert itself was good vibes, one aspect that was quite off was the concert’s camera transitions and shots. Critiquing the horrible camera work is tough to talk about, let alone criticize, since directing an entire camera crew is no easy feat. If there’s a mistake or out-of-focus shot here or there, no problem. Mistakes happen.
Yet, when the camera transitions are so bad and happens every other minute, this actually affects a person’s concert experience and should be called out.
Nearly all concerts have large screens off to the left and right sides of the venue. These screens are crucical in showing the action on stage for those people sitting further in the back. Naturally, it’s important for the cameramen and women who man these cameras to have steady, stable shots of the singers, making the concert viewing experience whether in the front, middle, or back of the venue, seemless.
Sadly, the camera work was anything but seemless on this night.
The camera shots were often shaky, out-of-focus, or didn’t capture the right Bini member singing. The camera team would be late by several seconds in focusing on the current singer and would try and compensate by jerking the camera to said singer.
This jerking and unstable movement could have been fixed with a gimble, a looser control over camera movement (rather than just tightening the camera joints to the max so it can barely move), or switching to another camera that’s shooting the right singer.
There also could have been a side angle or camera close up to the stage to provide more variety of shots during the concert. The zoom in-and-out functions could have also been used as well.
These variety of angles and zoom-in-and-out movements are always seen on K-pop variety shows and concerts to provide a great viewing experience on TV.
Again, the intent here isn’t to full-on bash the camera crew, as the job is quite hard to do in real time. The hope here is to give some friendly and also tough love to improve the Bini experience for future concerts. And speaking of future concerts…
Bini Hopes to Come Back

As their last song ended and the predicted encore came 10 minutes afterwards, the ladies ended the night with “Pantropiko.” As the girls started to go into the audience and high-touch fans – one of my friends made a heart with Maloi and fangirled soon after – fans began to squeeze together to see the Bini girls up close.
When the Bini members all came back to the stage, they asked for an audience picture.
Then the question came up: “Would Bini return to SF?” Bini would answer that.
“We’d love to come back to the Bay Area and San Francisco!” The audience, in turn, roared in approval, hoping that the Biniverse experience will return for years to come.
After leaving the concert, two things are certain: There’s a ton of Filipinos here in the Bay and P-pop is growing in the West.