We thought we'd light 10 candles on a birthday cake for the Burl's 10th anniversary this weekend and give you a brief history in the form of, you guessed it, a top 10 list.

Chopper Brown. The Burl wouldn't exist without this band. Why? Because two of the original three owners were members. Cannon Armstrong and Seth Bertram originally rented the location as their rehearsal space. "We could be as loud and go as late as we wanted," Armstrong said.
But they didn't rent the whole space. Armstrong describes their original co-tenants as "the remnants of a rowdy biker gang. They rented the front and we rented the back."
The Burl's building is almost 100 years old. It was built by Texaco as a railroad loading station in 1928. Plans and other artifacts found from that period still adorn some walls inside.
How the location looked in 2015 when the venue was still in the works. | Courtesy of The Burl.
Armstrong and Bertram decided to buy the place as the Distillery District was near the beginning of its rebirth. They asked a friend, Jomo Thompson, to join them. (Bertram eventually left the ownership group and current co-owner Will Harvey joined.) But what would they do with the parcel? "We'd done little performances and parties. We decided we were going to do a venue," Armstrong recalls. "And, at some point, a barcade."
The name. Surely there must have been a debate — or not. Armstrong remembers the group asking each other, "What are we going to call this thing?" Bertram looked around at all the timber stacked up for them to finish the place and said, "Let's just call it 'The Burl,' and that was it." (Per Merriam-Webster, a burl is "a hard woody often flattened hemispherical outgrowth on a tree.")
The first performance at the new 300-person venue was by... a comedian. Trae Crowder, to be precise, also known as the "Liberal Redneck," who sold out two nights.
The first band to play the space were the Blackfoot Gypsies. Today, they go by DeeOhGee and we recommend catching them whenever possible. They recently played the Burl's free outdoor Fourth of July show.
Every couple of years, approximately, the Burl adds an element, Armstrong said. The Burl Arcade came about two years in. The Burl stage debuted at the first Railbird in 2019. The Burl Outdoors came about during the Covid era. Burl Brew followed in March 2024. Asked what the next thing will be, Armstrong demurs. "We're not looking to evolve. We want to hone in on what we do. There's only one Burl."
Kentucky artists and artists with Kentucky connections are at home at the Burl. Bee Taylor and her band have played there several times. | LEXtoday
Numbers. When it opened, shows were booked a week out. Now, it's often a year or more ahead. They host roughly 20-25 outdoor shows and 250 shows inside annually. Many feature major names.
Names like Billy Strings. Or Phoebe Bridgers, who chose to do a recent pop-up show there. But Kentucky's own Tyler Childers played three fabled nights in 2017. And Armstrong says watching Kentucky musicians like Childers, Abby Hamilton, and Nicholas Jamerson grow is part of the Burl's magic. "One of our main goals is not to add to the list of things that make it harder for musicians," says Armstrong. That means the venue doesn't take merch cuts, and the artists are given free lodging with a nice green room. "We want to be here to provide a space at the start too."

Here's to 10 more years.