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Music fills Laurelhurst Park on a Thursday night. The grass field is packed with families and couples on picnic blankets; dogs and toddlers run around. Curbside Serenade (Southeast César E. Chávez Boulevard and Stark Street, curbsideserenade.org) is putting on a show that’s getting everyone laughing, dancing and singing.
“It all started because the streets were empty in 2020,” says Johnny Franco, a co-founder of Curbside Serenade, a nonprofit dedicated to live music and advocating for street musicians.
Franco moved to Portland from Brazil in 2018 and was busking on street corners “five hours a day, six days a week,” he says. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the streets were desolate, which inspired Franco to promote private serenades, going to people’s backyards to perform live music.
One couple booked Franco to serenade them in Laurelhurst Park.
“A lot of passersby really loved it, so Johnny kept coming back,” says David Pollack, co-founder of Curbside Serenade. That one park session has become weekly concerts from spring to fall at Mount Tabor and Laurelhurst Park every year since.
“The more we keep doing, the more we want to find opportunities to give the people of Portland a program that caters to the Portland weirdness,” Franco says.
While music is the heart of the show, side acts and booths set up along the perimeter of the concert add to the aura. When WW attended the show June 11, Franco hosted a dog show, highlighting all the furry attendees in the crowd and giving Lulu the beagle a Christmas sweater for her outstanding tricks.
Franco also gave a shout-out to the assortment of concessions, which included meatballs that he suggested younger members of the audience avoid due to their spiciness.
“We love creating something out of nothing,” Pollack says. What started as a way for one musician to make it through the pandemic has “become one of the staples of Portland.”
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