Charlie Burg’s Return to ‘Cuse Shuts Down The Harrington
Photos & Story by Shelby Rodger
While March Madness took over TV screens across the country on Saturday night, followers of the university’s music scene had alternate plans. They flooded into the basement of The Harrington to welcome student music legend Charlie Burg back to Syracuse.
The “Lancaster Nights” singer-songwriter and SU alum has blown up in popularity across the country since launching his music career in 2015 with the release of his first mixtape, “Blue Wave Mosaic.” Now, he decided to swing by his old neighborhood before embarking on an eight-show tour across the U.S. Saturday’s show—co-hosted by The Summit and Avani—marked Burg’s first Syracuse basement performance since 2019 and featured student openers Lauren Juzang and Winter Beach.
Before heading downstairs, fans of Burg lined up in the driveway and eagerly chatted about what to expect from the king of underground shows, including student artists Emilie Del Signore and Julianna McCaffrey. Both seniors in the School of Art at SU, the two previously worked with The Harrington by designing their promotional posters. While they didn’t design Burg’s poster (they laughed and said he has a professional marketing team), they were still excited for the show.
Del Signore did however design posters for some of Burg’s early house shows at a different off-campus venue called The Ark back in 2018. She had no idea he would later grow to this level of prominence.
“I used to do Charlie Burg posters before I knew who Charlie Burg was, and then in the last couple years I started listening to him more because my little siblings [in California] love him,” Del Signore said in amazement. “I realized recently that song ‘Lancaster Nights’ of his is about The Ark on Lancaster, and I was at those shows.”
Winter Beach warmed the crowd up nicely with their heavy grunge sound reminiscent of the 90’s. People were already sweating by the time sophomore Lauren Juzang took the cement-floor stage to perform songs from her recent EP, HAHAHHAHA, along with unique rock renditions of “Hot and Cold” by Katy Perry and “Yellow” by Coldplay. Before her set, Juzang said she was thrilled to be performing with Burg and had heard of him prior to attending SU.
“He’s so amazing. I saw him play last night with NONEWFRIENDS. and I lost my mind,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m here… He’s like a legend here.”
Just after midnight, the crowd cheered and slammed on the ceiling vents to welcome Burg to the front of the room. Almost immediately fans started singing along to his lyrics, with some girls even shouting, “I love you, Charlie!” Burg kept the crowd engaged from the start with his charisma and impressive electric guitar solos. His familiarity with the underground setting came across as he comfortably riffed to his song “Instead of my Room.”
Burg’s set at The Harrington unfortunately did not carry on uninterrupted. After just three songs, the amped-up instruments and sold out crowd were loud enough to cause a noise complaint. Syracuse police arrived at the door and Burg was forced to pause. About 15 minutes later, despite recommendations to strip the music down, organizers tried to keep the show going at full volume. Burg and his band were able to perform a beautifully jazzy rendition of Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” before the cops showed up at the door yet again and shut things down for good.
Burg did not want to let his fans down, however, and with the help of the show’s sound engineer, and SU student Sarah Gross, he was able to continue his performance acoustically at a different house across the street. Much of the initial crowd from The Harrington followed him there and continued to clap and cheer for him, albeit with a bit more caution. If anything, the entire ordeal just affirmed the loyalty students still have for the basement music legend.