Gave Johnson

For a decade and a half, Gabe Johnson has been a key figure in Central Oregon’s music scene, promoting local shows, organizing prominent concert series and festivals, playing in bands and booking tours across the country from his home base in Bend.

When he moved to town in late 2006, he didn’t know what the future held, but he didn’t necessarily expect it to hold quite so much.

“I’m invested. I never thought I would get this invested,” Johnson said. “I look back now and I feel like, ‘Wow, there’s a real legacy thing going on here.’ There’s a lot to point at and a lot of twists and turns and personal development, and a lot of musical exploration, too.”

This weekend, Johnson will celebrate a number of different milestones: 15 years of local concert promotion with his company Parallel 44 Presents, and said company’s 1,300th show in Bend, Friday night at Volcanic Theatre Pub, where Johnson’s own band, Watkins Glen, will perform.

On a personal level, Friday is also Johnson’s 51st birthday, and he’s celebrating three years of sobriety.

Some quick math tells us that 1,300 shows over 15 years averages out to somewhere around one show every four days.

A show every four days. The feet ache just thinking about it.

“Other than the four or five I was too sick to actually attend or work,” Johnson said, “I was there.”

Johnson moved with his family to Bend in late 2006. At the time, he ran his own reputable national booking agency, In The Pocket Artists, representing funk, jam and rock bands from across the country. Not long after he arrived, he formed Parallel 44 as a vehicle for putting on shows in Bend and he started playing in bands, including Elektrapod, the Maxwell Friedman Group and, most recently, Watkins Glen, an improv-heavy rock band inspired by the Allman Brothers, The Grateful Dead, The Band and Little Feat.

“Just when you lose hope (of playing in) your perfect band — as soon as you give up on it, it comes to you,” Johnson said. “The magic that’s going on at our shows, the attention and mindfulness it takes to be great improvisers together and take daring risks, it’s something that I don’t see other bands doing.”

Over the years, Johnson has brought many of Bend’s most popular bands to town, including Lettuce, Kitchen Dwellers, Twiddle, Orgone, The California Honeydrops, Sophistafunk, Spunj, Lyrics Born and The Infamous Stringdusters — and that’s just in the past year. Along the way, he has built a community of loyal Parallel 44 ticket buyers and fans who are “really lovely people,” he said. “They want to engage at the highest and deepest levels and are genuinely trying to be part of a community of people going deep through music.”

With 1,300 shows under his belt, it’s all but impossible for Johnson to pick some favorites. Instead, his mind wanders more to ideas and concepts:

• That his popular annual winter concert series outdoors at The Commons is a “uniquely Bend thing” and proof that local music lovers are dedicated and tough enough to endure very cold temperatures for live music.

• That he and his team have played a big role in what he calls “the concierge effect” — touring bands building days off around their Bend shows to decompress and enjoy what the area has to offer, from golf to rafting trips to hikes. (“The word is out that Bend is the place,” he said. “We’re not automaton music promoters. We’re buddies with these people, and we’re very hospitable.”)

• That Bend has grown from a town that can reasonably accommodate one big concert in an evening to one that can fill multiple venues at the same time on the same night.

“There was a time when that had no chance of happening,” Johnson said. “We still try not to do that, but there have been a handful of times when it’s like, ‘Oh, Bend has stepped up to the next level.’ And it feels like we’ve been a big part of that.”

He’s proud of a lot of Parallel 44’s accomplishments, of course, but most of all, Johnson looks at the local music scene kind of like a child that he has watched grow up over the years. And while he’s not ready to let go quite yet, he feels like he could if he wanted or needed to and the scene would be fine on its own.

“One of the reasons I started Parallel 44 was because I wanted to bring acts to Bend that wouldn’t stop here otherwise if it wasn’t for me,” he said.

“It was a selfish motivation at the time,” Johnson continued. “But it’s a cool legacy to look at it and think that if I died tomorrow, there are enough stewards locally now that someone will take up the slack and we’ll still have a party and it’ll be OK.”

(Editor’s note: This story has been edited. An earlier version contained incorrect math regarding how many shows Johnson promoted per week. The Bulletin regrets the error.)

If You Go

Who: Watkins Glen and Bodhi Mojo

When: 8 p.m. Friday, doors open 7 p.m.

Where: Volcanic Theatre Pub, 70 SW Century Drive, Bend

Cost: $15 in advance, $20 at the door

Contact: volcanictheatre.com.