John Hovorka hasn’t lived in Boston for 27 years and comes back infrequently. But now the singer-guitarist of a great ‘80s band, the Turbines, is coming back for one reason: To rejoin his bandmates for a gig at Cuisine en Locale in Somerville.

“It’s an opportunity to play some songs with a band I love to play with,” Hovorka says. “This will be our sixth reunion show since we broke up 28 years ago. And surely this event is a great thing for the Boston rock scene in general.”

The event, called Pipeline! At 25: 50 Years of Boston Rock, is a 13-night string of weekend concerts running from Sept. 12 to Oct. 12. The concerts will take place at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, The Brighton Music Hall and the Paradise in Boston, the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge and the Cuisine en Locale in Somerville. It will feature Boston bands of the Pipeline! and pre-Pipeline! era such as Reddy Teddy, Barry & the Remains, the Rising Storm and The Freeborne.

Pipeline!, WMBR’s Tuesday two-hour live music and more show, is an influential program that has been emanating from the MIT radio station since 1989. The show’s first hour is recorded music by New England bands. The second hour is live music.

Bob Dubrow hosted Pipeline! from 1993 to 2003. Jeff Breeze, who prompted Dubrow to undertake the herculean task of booking, took over the Pipeline! seat and is there now.

It’s nice to be reminded of all the talent that the area has produced,” Breeze says, “and I hope that there is an audience that remembers and is up for attending these shows. People should also be aware of all the great music happening currently as well so that we don’t have to wait 25 years to celebrate the great sound that’s around now.”

Dubrow, one-time co-owner of Kimchee Records, rented the rooms and booked the gigs for the upcoming event. He organized a similar event for the 10th anniversary in 1999, booking six reunited bands into the Middle East Downstairs for a sold-out show.

“I have this thing for doing large events,” says Dubrow. He began working on the bills in April and landed just less than half of those he’d hoped for. The misses, Dubrow says, included the Girls, Bullet Lavolta, the Zulus (first band to play Pipeline!), Belly, the Neighborhoods, Karate and Helium. Bands that surprised him by saying yes? The Cave Dogs, Anastasia Screamed and Lazy Susan.

As to this year’s skein, right now, 78 bands are on the docket and a couple more could be added. The roster includes luminaries from several eras of Boston rock: O Positive, the Dogmatics, Someone & the Somebodies, the Flies, the F.U.’s, the Bentmen, Heretix, and Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band.

“The thing that probably sets the Boston scene apart from others,” says Fertile Virgin singer-guitarist Julie Kantner, ” is it’s transitory nature. So many people come here from all over for a few years for school or whatever before moving on to the next town the next adventure. So bands come and go and audiences ebb and flow. Keeps things fresh and at the same time spreads the music way beyond Boston. And even though we’ve always been considered small potatoes compared to New York, I love Boston, and Cambridge, and Somerville and the support you can get from more intimate cities.”

Band members have praised Dubrow’s commitment and dedication to organizing this event.

“This grand undertaking by Bob certainly seems to me to be pretty much unprecedented,” says the Sheila Divine singer-guitarist Aaron Perrino. “I have a hard time scheduling a practice with three other band members. I can’t imagine what kind of time suck it’d be to organize this thing.”