THE young woman from Wuhan in China was having none of it. "Where is your invitation?" she asked, standing firm like a Beijing Guard. Kieran Goss looked at her and smiled. Was she pulling his leg? Was that a twinkle in her eye? Was that a twinkle in his eye? We'll never know the look that passed between the Man from Newry and the woman from Wuhan. It must remain a mystery.
Kiki Stone, grinning from ear to ear, then allowed the singer/songwriter through to perform tracks from his latest CD, called red-letter day.
Goss's friend from school and Queen's University, Brendan Murphy, from The Four of Us, was allowed through as well, and he stood in the cordoned-off area of Cocoon, Dublin's latest venue, just off Duke Street, to hear Goss sing. One fan whispers that Murphy's latest album, Classified Personal, has just gone platinum.
Tonight the Goss fan club is out in force: starting with his mother and father - Josephine and William Goss and two of his brothers, Peadar and Cormac. His mother-in-law, Florence Kinsella, is waiting to hear him sing too.
The two women are in agreement - their favourite song on the album is Reasons to Leave. "It's about emigration. It'll appeal to a lot of people who have children away from home," says Josephine.
One of the musicians on the album, violinist Maire Breatnach, greets Paul Tiernan, co-writer of the the title track, who has just arrived up from west Cork, sporting the crusty-chic look.
Check out Ann Kinsella, backing singer on most of the album's songs. A former a cappella singer, she married Goss two years ago. They arrive late. Why? we wonder. "We have to fight our way through the paparazzi to get here," she explains.