âmes pétillantes ~ classic rock imagines

• Bob Dylan •

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a particularly safe New Year! I pretty much took a break from life to catch up with family and friends, but hopefully I'm coming back strong in the New Year with this first chapter of a two-part story! I hope you all enjoy.

Before we start, I'd like to say a little tribute to George Michael, who died five years ago on Christmas day just gone. He might not have been a rock star in the literal sense, but he burned just as bright as them. R.I.P George ❤

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The only thing keeping you going was the excitement that was somehow still coursing through your veins. That, and the two cups of espresso you had just downed after stepping off the train.

It was 9:15 on the morning of Saturday, May 1st, 1965, and you and your best friend Louise were huddled in the corner of a nameless café just outside Liverpool Lime Street station. On Friday morning, the pair of you had travelled from your homes in Manchester to Sheffield by train, spent that night sleeping cuddled together beneath an arch at the train station, then jumped on the first train to Liverpool.

But, hell, was it worth it. Even now, leaning over the dregs of your steaming cups of coffee, you and Louise were still babbling excitedly about the events of the previous night.

Because you hadn't made the insane trip for nothing. You had both travelled to Sheffield to see the infamous Bob Dylan on his first tour of the U.K., and you had been lucky enough to bag two tickets for the following night in Liverpool too. And that was an opportunity neither of you had been able to pass up, even if it did mean sleeping in the train station for a night.

Actually, you had got the Liverpool tickets first, camping outside your local record store for a full day and night to hold your place in the que. That was the only place in your small district where anyone could get their hands on tickets for the big gigs across the country, and even though you were there for way over 24 hours, you were still one of the last ones lucky enough to secure your places in the crowd.

The pair of you were more than excited to just catch even one of his gigs, but a couple on your street had jumped in early enough to secure Sheffield tickets. However, when they began showing signs of typhoid fever after their trip to Aberdeen two days before the show, they were devestated to admit that they wouldn't be able to go. Yours was the first house they called to enquire about selling on their tickets, and yours turned out to be the only house they called.

Hence why you and Louise had ended up huddled together in Sheffield's grimy train station for the night. By the time you'd secured the tickets from your neighbours and arranged everything with Louise and your parents, it was too late in the day to find a safe place to spend the night. But, yes, it had definitely been worth it.

"I still can't believe we really saw him." Louise had been almost speechless since you'd shaken her awake from beneath her thin coat that morning. In fact, she'd been basically repeating that same line for the past few hours. It was quite funny, actually. The night before, once the concert was over and the both of you were tentatively pacing the streets to see if you could find any cheap hotels that may possibly have a room available so late at night, she hadn't been able to stop talking.

Hours she had spent gushing over the man, the songs, the performance, re-enacting snatches of song and skipping up and down the endless streets like a child after a trip to the sweet shop. You could even swear you'd heard her singing in her sleep as you settled down beside her in the train station.

But now she was in a daze, still unbelieving that she had been in the same room as the idolised voice of a generation, had breathed the same air, had been within an arm's reach of the face who previously had only been available from the covers of records.