Madison locals The Box Social played a rather mellow set Friday evening, opening for Bob Mould. It was a quasi-acoustic affair, with singer/guitarist Nick Junkunc accompanied by guitarist Nick Woods. Considering the set only featured half the band and the fact that they were the openers, TBS played for a solid 40 minutes – and a very memorable 40 minutes at that.
Over the course of the set, the band rocked out when the songs called for it, mellowed out when the songs didn’t. The performance had a real flow to it that most shows are missing nowadays. The band also told stories behind their songs and thanked everyone for supporting local music and the festival multiple times. The band also had a sense of humor about the show, joking about it being acoustic: Junkunc quipped early in the set that, “Usually we have a rhythm section,” to which Woods quickly added, “And amps.”
The band played songs off their recent album, *Get Going*, including “Ginger Ale” and “Galoshes,” and even a newer song called “The Darndest Thing.”
As for the audience, the ones that were clearly there for TBS were very into the set. Even the people that sat through their show to see Bob Mould seemed to enjoy themselves. The audience members that were there to see TBS were noticeably younger than that of Mould fans, so it was rather obvious to tell who was there for which band just by age.
After the show, Junkunc and Woods were kind enough to sit down for a few minutes for a quick interview. Woods summed up the Madison music scene rather succinctly: he argued that because Madison is a small city, the residents can support local music but, at the same time, there is less music to support because the city is small.
As for songwriting, Woods sees the songs as “cake with icing,” whereby Junkunc (the main songwriter) makes the “cake” and the rest of the band adds “icing.” When asked where he gets inspiration, Junkunc was quick to point out that, “It’s not that easy to just sit down and write a song about cars” and that “any songwriter will tell you that songs come from somewhere else.”
At any rate, it was a great performance from a great up-and-coming local act. These guys deserve fame.
