diff --git a/core/dbt/clients/registry.py b/core/dbt/clients/registry.py
index 846b4f622c8..c0687099f48 100644
--- a/core/dbt/clients/registry.py
+++ b/core/dbt/clients/registry.py
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ def _get_url(url, registry_base_url=None):
 
 
 def _get_with_retries(path, registry_base_url=None):
-    get_fn = functools.partial(_get, path, registry_base_url)
+    get_fn = functools.partial(_get_cached, path, registry_base_url)
     return connection_exception_retry(get_fn, 5)
 
 
@@ -31,28 +31,31 @@ def _get(path, registry_base_url=None):
     fire_event(RegistryProgressGETResponse(url=url, resp_code=resp.status_code))
     resp.raise_for_status()
 
+    json_response = (
+        resp.json()  # if this fails, it should raise requests.exceptions.JSONDecodeError and trigger retry
+    )
     # It is unexpected for the content of the response to be None so if it is, raising this error
     # will cause this function to retry (if called within _get_with_retries) and hopefully get
     # a response.  This seems to happen when there's an issue with the Hub.
     # See https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-core/issues/4577
-    if resp.json() is None:
+    if json_response is None:
         raise requests.exceptions.ContentDecodingError(
             "Request error: The response is None", response=resp
         )
-    return resp.json()
+    return json_response
+
+
+_get_cached = memoized(_get)
 
 
 def index(registry_base_url=None):
     return _get_with_retries("api/v1/index.json", registry_base_url)
 
 
+# is this redundant, now that all _get responses are being cached?
 index_cached = memoized(index)
 
 
-def packages(registry_base_url=None):
-    return _get_with_retries("api/v1/packages.json", registry_base_url)
-
-
 def package(name, registry_base_url=None):
     response = _get_with_retries("api/v1/{}.json".format(name), registry_base_url)
 
@@ -80,7 +83,8 @@ def package(name, registry_base_url=None):
 
 
 def package_version(name, version, registry_base_url=None):
-    return _get_with_retries("api/v1/{}/{}.json".format(name, version), registry_base_url)
+    response = package(name, registry_base_url)
+    return response["versions"][version]
 
 
 def get_available_versions(name):
diff --git a/core/dbt/events/types.py b/core/dbt/events/types.py
index 5190a58f210..870d8e06a90 100644
--- a/core/dbt/events/types.py
+++ b/core/dbt/events/types.py
@@ -2422,6 +2422,8 @@ def message(self) -> str:
     GitNothingToDo(sha="")
     GitProgressUpdatedCheckoutRange(start_sha="", end_sha="")
     GitProgressCheckedOutAt(end_sha="")
+    RegistryProgressMakingGETRequest(url="")
+    RegistryProgressGETResponse(url="", resp_code=1234)
     SystemErrorRetrievingModTime(path="")
     SystemCouldNotWrite(path="", reason="", exc=Exception(""))
     SystemExecutingCmd(cmd=[""])