In Spring 2007 my wife and I purchased “The Back Forty” and it wasn’t long before plans were underway for Rawkstock 1. As a longtime player I’ve had the good fortune to play outdoor concerts and had stumbled onto the perfect opportunity to put one on for the whole community. So I gathered together all the musicians I knew, started building the stage and clearing the land. With tons of help from this motley crew, it came off without a hitch and we’re not looking back! Each year we’ve made great strides putting together a fun, family friendly concert in a venue that’s like the Gorge, but without the pat down.

In 2007 we had such a great time that it became an annual event! The roof was held up by: a Tractor (John Deere of course), Uncle Twisted the boom truck and whatever lumber we could dig up! The hippies even came down from Canada for the show!

In 2008 we reworked the stage cover with a light truss courtesy of Chuck Ray at Custom Fab LC and two fallen cedar trees. That made the stage even roomier! Six bands were added to the stew and we ran out of parking (always a good sign). No complaints from the neighbors on this scorcher of a day.

In 2009 we went a little crazy... we brought in a bigger PA and more lights for the show. The power company loves us! The horses went into the barn and were well fed by the children. But that gave us pasture back so parking was no longer a problem. Tara from the Tatshak came out and tattooed the kids till it got dark and she needed the headlights on the truck to see by. The Oregon Donor brought along some jugglers who put on an AWESOME show for the crowd and stayed around to show the kids some amazing feats of skill. Hope to see them again, too! We were blessed with more bands than we really had time for... so we just kept playing late into the night. It must've sounded good though, because we didn't any complaints, and didn't get shut down.

~Mark Schornack

NOTE: Slideshow photos graciously shot by Colin Smith