By Jackie Annett
Some Might Say Oasis fever is sweeping the world ahead of the Britpop band’s much anticipated reunion starting with their first gig together in 16 years. And as millions bag tickets to see them at their UK concerts, the Mirror might just have found their number one fan. Oasis famously split in August 2009 after brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher got into a fight backstage before a concert in Paris. It wasn’t the first time they’d come to blows – but this public spat signified the end for the band who had had us all singing along to catchy 90s anthems like Roll With It and Wonderwall. Now 16 years later – instead of Looking Back in Anger – they’re reuniting and touring the UK with their first gig kicking off in Cardiff tonight (July 4) much to the delight of millions of fans around the world . And while more than one million fans have been lucky enough to grab tickets at one of their concerts this summer, could we have found their number one fan? Katy Georgiou, a music therapist, has been a die hard Oasis fan since she first discovered the band in 1995. Back then she was just 12-years-old and saw them playing Live Forever at Glastonbury on TV while her grandmother was in hospital and remembers how the lyrics really resonated with her. Now 42, she’s seen them play – together and separately 16 times – and met her idols a few times over the years but her favourite memory has to be when she spoke to Liam on the phone in 2005 about a present she鈥檇 given him eight years earlier. “I have some beautiful and funny memories of meeting the Gallagher brothers,鈥 Katy tells The Mirror. 鈥淚’ve met them a few times and in 1998 I gave Liam a gift for his birthday and to say thank you as a fan. It was a tiny, white, tasselled tambourine that I’d bought from a music shop in Camden market, along with a black and white print of John Lennon, because every fan knows that he loves John Lennon. 鈥淵ears later in 2005 when I was in my final year of university, I was sitting in my room one morning writing an essay when I got a phone call from my mum. She told me that she’d gone out shopping and that I’d never guess who’d just walked in: Liam Gallagher !鈥 Unbeknown to Katy鈥檚 mum, Liam spotted her talking on the phone and strolled over to ask if he knew her because he thought he recognised her. She told him she was on the phone to her daughter – a huge fan of theirs. 鈥淭he next thing I know, he’s taken the phone off her hands and says hello to me!鈥 Katy recalls.鈥淚 said hello back and we had a quick little chat. I was in shock. That wasn’t even the best bit. I then said 鈥楲iam, I have no idea if you remember me, but I’ve met you a few times in the past and I once gave you a tambourine as a present.鈥欌 鈥淗e then proceeded to describe the very tambourine back to me! 鈥楧id it have a white skin on?鈥 he asked. 鈥榊es!鈥 I replied. 鈥楧id it have tassels?鈥 he said. 鈥榊es!鈥 I replied. He said he remembered it and that he still had it. That was eight years after I’d given it to him and he still remembered. It really made my day and made me realise how he makes an effort to remember people.鈥 The first time Katy saw Oasis play live was in 1997 at Wembley Arena when she was 14, before going to see them again at Wembley Stadium in 2000. Five years later in 2005 she went to see them in Milton Keynes. A few years later in 2009 she was lucky enough to see them another two times before they split up – once at Wembley Stadium and another time at the Electric Proms at Camden Roundhouse. After they split, Katy saw Liam Gallagher in Zurich 2017, at Knebworth in 2022 and at Manchester Co-Op in 2024. 鈥淚 also saw Noel Gallagher’s High Flying birds in 2015 at the 02 arena, 2022 in Hampstead Heath, 2023 at Brighton on the Beach and in 2024 at Alexandra Palace,” she adds. “And I saw Noel acoustically at the Royal Albert Hall in 2007 and 2010, Beady Eye in 2011 in Madrid, and Liam with Bonehead at Royal Albert Hall 2013.” But what is it about the 90s Britpop band that makes them so special? Katy says: “You listen to any Oasis song and the first thing you’ll notice is how inclusive they are: it’s about us, we, you and I. Second, the themes are universal: love, loss, joy, drawing on archetypes that people of any age and culture can understand. “This band have been there my whole life. Even in the 16 years between them splitting up in 2009 and reuniting in 2025, they never once left my thoughts. The reunion is more than just two brothers coming back together: it’s about all the people whose lives they touched and changed getting to share that moment together again in a shared moment of unity, to experience that nebulous ‘feeling’ that Oasis invoked in us from the moment we first heard them. 鈥淵ou listen to any interview Noel Gallagher gives, he will always make a point of crediting the ‘people’ for making his songs great. It’s about what we as people do with those songs and make of them and how we interact with the songs and integrate them into our lives and pass them on to others that makes them special.鈥 Katy Georgiou is a music-industry therapist and author of How to Understand and Deal with Stress and the founder of Sound Affects Podcast exploring music and mental health.