Cold-Calling Bob Dylan

1996-05-01, Mid-Hudson Civic Arena, Poughkeepsie, NY

After I published my Dubuque 1996 piece, talking to a bunch of the kids who got up on stage at that famously chaotic show, I heard from a few people who did similar things at other shows around the time. One was Steve Epstein, who got up onstage at a show in Poughkeepsie a few months prior.

That was a pretty good story—but he had an even wilder one, about cold-calling Bob Dylan at home. It went better than you might expect.

Marginally.

Here’s Steve’s story, edited and condensed, starting with the Poughkeepsie stage-crashing show then moving on to the cold call (calls plural, technically):