This Mistress - Live at SASHS

Being a member of Student Council had its advantages during my senior year at Shippensburg Area Senior High School (SASHS) in 1988. One of the perks was when it came time to offer suggestions for entertainment at Winter Carnival (a school event/dance), I was able to recommend the band I was in, This Mistress.

In the end, it came down to a Student Council vote between This Mistress and a DJ. After the ballots were cast and counted, This Mistress was chosen to perform at Winter Carnival on 03/12/88.

In retrospect, the $120 budget that Student Council had for entertainment would have better served the student body if they had chosen the DJ. Though we performed a good set of modern and classic rock songs, most of the student body would have probably preferred the DJ. So, to the students of SASHS in 1988, please accept my apology for suggesting that This Mistress play at Winter Carnival.

The original six member line up of This Mistress which played this show included Brad Shaeffer - Vocals, Matt "Scrap Pap" Skirpan - Guitar, Kevin "Bart the Fart" Wilson - Guitar, Scott McConnell - Synthesizer, Matt Norcross - Bass, and Tim Harrell - Drums. We also had extra tech support which included Ken Chandler - Main House Mix, Chris Terry - Lights, Kurt Smith - Videography, and Tony Townsend - Guitar Tech.

Some of the songs from our set included Guns 'n' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle, The Cult - Wildflower, INXS - Need You Tonight, Led Zeppelin - Misty Mountain Hop, Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train, and Red Rider - Lunatic Fringe. As you can see, our set was musically all over the place.

Though video of this performance does exist. The quality of the tape is very poor so I'm not going to share it at this time. Unfortunately, at the end of filming this performance, Kurt Smith dropped and broke his VTR machine (Sorry Kurt!) that he was carrying in his back pack to record the show. Maybe I'll be able to resurrect some of the footage for a future post but, for now, you only get to enjoy a picture from the show.