Get Get Aw! Stunts, Nostalgia, and What Really Went Down at The Sexbomb Show

(SPOT.ph) I didn’t see many straight men in the audience the night of the Sexbomb show at MOA Arena. I saw gay men and many, many, many women. A sea of them. “Mga pinalaki ng Sexbomb,” as people like to say. So I don’t know what the husband of Sexbomb alum Izzy Trazona is talking about. What I know is that Sexbomb Girls: The Get Get Aw Concert was quite the spectacle, and the ladies onstage the ultimate showgirls, dancing like their lives depended on every gyration, at times actually risking life and limb for the sake of not disappointing fans. Didn’t Aira Bermudez just get into an accident the night before, when she hit the stage floor face down after being thrown on air and doing a body flip?

I'm not really a Sexbomb fan, but there was so much good buzz about the show I knew I needed to beg someone for a way in—tickets were sold out weeks before! But full disclosure: I may have a video of myself doing the viral “Di Ko Na Mapipigilan” dance challenge back in 2022 somewhere in my drafts folder, and I never miss a chance to do the OG Sexbomb dance at every office Christmas party. There’s no denying it: Sexbomb choreography is as contagious as their songs are earworms.

The night of The Get Get Aw Concert Rawnd 5 began with a dance-off—yes, for a show that famously didn’t have believers and investors in the beginning, it made it to a fifth night—with volunteer audience members participating, women and gay men, all clad in Sexbomb-style attire to get the crowd hyped up for the show. There was “Spaghetti” grinding, hips dropping  “pababa nang pababa” down to the stage floor, and there were balls-breaking splits, too (wink, wink).

But the audience didn’t really need much hyping; we all knew what we were there for. As soon as the dance off was done and the giant rectangular scrim rose from the stage to reveal a group of dancers in formation, there was a roaring in the crowd. The audience rose from their seats, cam phones ready and Barbie-pink headbands sparkling. Suddenly, the MOA Arena was ablush with pink blinking lights.

And then out came the stars of the evening, lifted from under the stage, a sight harking back to the Destiny’s Child entrance at the Super Bowl halftime show seven years ago, complete with an army of backup dancers and bursts of smoke and fire. The crowd shrieked and the girls launched into a dance performance of the Tom Jones song that gave them their name—except this one is arranged a la “Run The World”, giving reason to the Mad Max-style outfits.

The choreography, too, was different; it's saying they’re no longer the noontime show background dancers from the early 2000s. It was giving JLo and Janet Jackson. Fast and complex and no longer pa-cute.

They’re all grown up, after all, the Sexbomb Girls that shot to fame some quarter of a century ago. One of the most influential girl groups in Philippine pop history. Selling over 12 million records in the 2000s. Those teenagers in their braided dos and little Lycra outfits are more than grownups now—they’re in their 40s. But like in the past, each girl still gives her all when faced with a crowd. And everyone looks great! With leader Rochelle Pangilinan—age 43— probably the most toned and sculpted of the gang, looking like the Queen Mother she is. The kind who demands a lot from her team because she demands so much more from herself.

She’s the pasimuno of all this, after all. The (re)Union Leader, if you will. She knew she didn’t only need to uphold a standard, she needed to raise the bar. It’s sort of an SOP with them, anyway, Rochelle would say in so many words during her interview with Karen Davila: The girls know that “paistaran” is the name of the game, and it seems they showed up not only ready to outdo each other but do what they’ve never done before.

The girls sang a medley of their hits, yes—“Sumayaw, Sumunod,” “The Spaghetti Song,” “Di Ko Na Mapipigilan,” “Pretty Little Baby,” “Bakit Papa?” and more. Because how could they not? It’s one of the reasons they put up this reunion, so that the fans can reminisce and relive the good old days. Although the songs hardly sound old or dated, with TikTok having revived a good number of these novelty ditties in the last few years, putting them back on the pop culture Zeitgeist, and the Sexbomb on everyone's radar.

They also sang the theme from Daisy Siete, and other songs from their popular afternoon drama series, giving the girls a chance to look like debutantes for a change, moving across the sprawling MOA Arena stage in billowing pastel gowns that made them look like floating fairies. It was a cool break from their woman warrior dance costumes, reminding audiences of the hardworking young ladies who rarely said no to gigs during the peak of the Sexbomb phenomenon, and rarely got enough sleep before the next taping day.

If there’s one thing The Get Get Aw Concert also proved—apart from the fact that you can have a bangin’ body in your 40s, and have it after kids—is that the ladies sure know how to put on a show. Who knew a dance concert could be more than just a string of dance numbers? The Get Get Aw Concert was loaded with grand gestures! The previous night, there was a proposal for a renewal of vows, from Maneuvers dancer Joshua Zamora to his wife, OG Sexbomb Jopay Paguia (the two were married in 2014). There was the surprise guest stint of Bini, the pambansang girl group, a title previously owned by—who else?—the Sexbomb Girls, of course.

And then there were the pasabog numbers. Sunshine Garcia’s solo spot dancing to Rihanna’s “Where Have You Been.” (“Parang hindi nanganak!” a woman’s voice shouted from the audience). Mia Pangyarihan having the time of her life belly-dancing and basking in the audience’s adoration in a Shakira number. Aira setting the stage ablaze in her sexy red and yellow costume, back in fine form performing “Alarma,” the same number that, um, alarmed people and almost cost Aira her life the evening before, when one of her dancers failed to catch her fall.

There was Jopay, too, in literal fighting form wearing a superhero costume, in a number that incorporated dance with action hero movements. And Rochelle, sashaying mid-air to the tune of her own dance hit “Baile,” giving off Satine in Moulin Rouge, yes, but also looking every bit the grownup majorette, decades away from when young Rochelle would do baton exhibitions in fiestas as a hyperactive teenager in Malabon where she grew up.

For the Sexbomb Girls, "putting on a show” included sharing personal journeys with their audience. And this is really, I believe, what made up the backbone of this comeback slash reunion extravaganza, the reason many in the audience showed up all those five nights. They came as girl groups, too, and some with their partners, looking like their ates onstage, outfitted in knee-high boots, short skirts, and sparkly tops. Or shirts emblazoned with the words “Pinalaki ng Sexbomb.”

Because there is truth in those words. The Sexbomb Girls didn’t only teach their fans how to do the “halukay ube” but inspired them to dream, or at the very least express themselves: color their hair a certain way, wear what they want to wear. Easily what any girl group worth their record deals should be able to do.

And now they’re back years after they disappeared from our noontime screens, armed this time with stories of heartbreak and survival and success. They talk about it in pre-recorded interviews on the giant LED screens, in between the aerial acrobatics and paandar moves. They spoke of sacrifice and regret. One lamented not being able to finish college. One girl feels sorry for not being there for a sick parent when she was needed the most, because work was calling. And it was always calling back then. “Puwede mapagod, bawal sumuko,” said another. Easily the mantra for each of the girls. Life is tough but Sexbomb is tougher.

So, no—I don’t think people watch Sexbomb and think only of what their clothes expose and what they leave to the imagination, as that Alvin Aragon would have us believe. I mean for sure some people still think that way, see the girls as sex objects—but I don’t think they’re the fans who bought tickets for the concert, who dressed up and showed up at MOA Arena. The folks at the concert, I think they saw the girls as these awesome women, hardcore entertainers, seasoned warriors not ready to give up the fight just yet—whether that fight is against age or time or disappearing once more. Or simply against being apart after months of being together again.

I think the audiences saw stories of survival, too, of transformation, and possibilities in Sexbomb. Is it really possible to look like that at 40? Is it possible for a poor girl in floodstricken Malabon na nag-uulam ng kape to end up with a dreamy husband and a good life? Is it possible to land flat on your face the night before and redeem yourself onstage the very next night like nothing happened? It's possible. And if the Sexbomb Girls can do it, their fans can do it, too. After all, sino ba nagpalaki sa kanila?

All photographs courtesy of Nice Print Photo.