An Impulsive Trip Abroad and Impromptu Concert Resulted Into a 15-Year Romance

After purchasing concert tickets from a scalper in 2009 (left). On vacation in the Mediterranean in May 2024 (right). Photos: Jesse Adams

While Jesse and I did meet on an Irish Ferry ship traveling between Ireland, and France, this is not where we started our relationship. After that first encounter, we met once in France, my home country, and then chatted for months online — still as nothing more than friends. The odds of meeting again were slim: Jesse was traveling around Europe on a Eurail Pass and I was completing my Masters Degree in Dublin, but apparently, the old saying is true: When there’s a will, there’s a way. I don’t remember which of the two of us took the leap and said we should see each other again, but in a matter of minutes we decided to meet in Scotland in a week’s time. I had a long break from college and he had three weeks left before his return to North America via England — it was now or never. Some of my friends like to say this was an international booty call, but I have a more romantic vision of things.

In June 2009, three months after the auspicious ferry ride, we met at a hostel in Glasgow, where, I’d like to make clear, we had separate rooms. Beyond the two nights we had booked at the Glasgow Youth Hostel, we had no other plans. We were going to play it by ear. After all, once we spent time alone, what if we did not really like each other that much? We shouldn’t have worried, however. We shared our first kiss two days after our arrival, and from then on decided to make the most of the little time we had by traveling around the UK.

During our meanderings, we got to know each other fast. What we liked and disliked, our families, our plans for the future, our past relationships. On our tour of Glasgow, when stopped at a record store called Monorail Music, I learned that he collected records and loved every kind of music under the sun. In return, he learned that I knew nothing about bands and genres — except for Oasis, the rock band that I listened to throughout all my teenage years. He’d never heard of it but, in an effort to know more about me, he picked up two second-hand Oasis CDs that day.

Life can have a very clear way to let you know you’re on the right path and for Jesse and I, the unequivocal sign was inside a free newspaper.

Only a few days after our visit to Monorail Music, at a café in Edinburgh, Jesse picked up a copy of a paper that was left on a nearby seat. In it, a one-page insert advertized the Oasis Summer Tour 2009, including a concert at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium that was to take place that very night.

Even though he knew nothing of the band, Jesse could not fathom us defying fate so brazenly. The concert was fully booked, but nothing was going to get in our way.

A few hours before the show was to start, we hung around Murrayfield Stadium with hordes of fans getting drunk on two-litter plastic bottles of Strongbow, in the hopes of finding a scalper. A little bargaining and £90 ($115) later, we were in.

Oasis performing at Murrayfield Stadium in 2009. Photo: Jesse Adams

Photo: Jesse Adams

Photos: Jesse Adams

That night, after Jesse discouraged me from leaving my seat to join the madness in the pit, I sang the band’s hits alongside the crowd of 60,000 and he listened. We held hands and watched while Noel Gallagher sang “Don’t look back in Anger” and his brother Liam, ever the showman, gave it all on “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star.” When we looked at each other at the end of the concert, we both knew we’d sealed the deal somehow. This was the beginning of something special.

Spontaneity and our willingness to take a chance is what started our now 15-year-old relationship and it’s what allowed it to flourish. While I said no to following him to North America right away after our travels around the UK, just a few weeks after Jesse went back home and I settled back in Dublin, I applied for a job and a Canadian work visa, both of hich I got almost instantly. In September, after I completed my thesis, I flew to Canada and started my new life.

As luck would have it, Oasis’ Murrayfield Stadium concert in June 2009, is one of the very last shows the band did. In August of that year, the band broke up permanently and they have never played together since then. For Jesse and I, however, it was only the start. 15 years later, we’re still going strong.

Ed note: Shortly after this story published, The Gallagher brothers announced that they put their differences aside and that Oasis will once again be touring after a 15-year hiatus.”