Comment by Mike Chervinko on February 18, 2014 at 2:31pm

My family and I stopped at the Ariston Cafe in Litchfield, Il, during our drive up to Peoria the day before the concert.  It's a cool historic diner located on route 66 full of neon lights and great food.  We got some postcards there

The morning of the concert we noticed two buses parked across the parking lot and I noticed a man, who clearly looked like a musician (cool glasses and a fedora), walk from the buses to the side entrance of the hotel.  I eventually made it over to their lobby and saw the guy sitting at a table reading the paper.  I asked him if he was with the tour buses and he said (slightly stunned) yeah, uh-huh.  We chatted for a second and I asked him which band he was with.  He gave me look that said " I wish I could tell you, but I can't"  I caught the vibe and dropped the topic.  I told him this was my 3rd Dylan show and he hoped I enjoyed it.  As it turns out, J.D. put together it was Stu Kimball that I had unknowingly met.  We went over a little later to get him to sign our post cards but he was gone.

The day progressed and we saw lots of folks going to and from the bus and hotel.  One figure was dressed like a hobo in a hoodie sweatshirt.  We called him the hoodie weirdo.

Later, we gathered our stuff and headed out for an evening of music and fun.  As we approached our fish doctor's car I asked J.D. if he had the tickets.  He said "oh s***, man, no I'll be right back" and headed back to the room.  Me and the fish doc hopped in the car.  I was looking her direction and she was looking my direction, which gave her a view of the buses.  She noticed the "hoodie weirdo" we had been discussing earlier, and before she could finish telling me what she was seeing, I was out of the car making a B-line for the buses.  I didn't really expect it to be Bob, but hey, maybe it was another band member.  I wanted to catch the person before they disappeared back onto the bus so my pace was fast.  As I approached the buses I could see the figure's reflection on the further bus and it was getting closer to me.  I slowed my stride but my heart started to really pound and out from in between the vehicles a little man appeared.  I recognize him as Bob Dylan, holy s***!!! BOB DYLAN!!!  Pure instinct kicked in and I managed to stay relaxed as I shouted "We were just hopping in the car to head to your show, Bob!"  He looked over at me a little startled and said "what."  I repeated and by that time I was to him.  We greeted and shook hand.  He asked me more questions than I asked him - my name, occupation, where I worked, lived and so on.  He seemed really curious and had a groovy way of putting things.  I told him about J.D. and what a big fan he is; and that I'd like them to meet.  Bob said that would be great, but I was terrified that J.D. would take too long doing whatever he was doing and Bob would have to go.  Finally after a few minutes J.D. showed up.  Haha, finally!  Bob would definitely be roped by J.D. long enough for me to get those cool postcards!!  Bob said again as I left to get them that he wasn't going anywhere, but I wasn't about to risk it?  I scurried into the hotel, struggling to fit the damn key card into the damn slot reader to unlock the damn door because I started shaking so much.  I rallied the families, "HE'S OUT THERE! . . ." it was hard to bring words to my mouth at this point, " . . .WE'RE TALKING TO HIM!"  The girls, "who?"  Me, ". . . BOB DYLAN!!!!"  The girls "WHAT!  REALLY!!" and so on.  I managed to grab the postcards and booked it back to the action (it didn't occur to me that our families were allowed to meet him until I was about to leave with the cards.  I told my wife to grab the kids, bare foot and all, and lets go).  Bob made good on his promise to give us personalized autographs and seemed tickled the whole time.  It was as perfect of an experience as one could hope for.  I got 1 on 1 time with Bob, J.D. got 1 on 1 time and our families met him too.

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