"In every doorway stands heart's desire"

I said that the call was only going to be for three songs...but everyone knew I'd stay online for the whole set. Which was:

Faster Than The Hound (we came in...)
King of the Fairies
Sword of Light*
The Power and the Glory
Rocks Remain**
The Man Who Built America***
Fantasia (My Lagan Love)****
Furniture
Dearg Doom

encore with

Guests of the Nation!!!(this is where...)

Then I was talking briefly with Barry Devlin. Who knows what we said to each other? Then Barry up on the stage saying something. Then Charles: "I think you were better than us actually." Then Johnny (I think) "These boys were rockin'!!!" Then Jim Lockhart went into a thoughtful, well-reasoned monologue that was drowned out in the HORSLIPS clap, clap, clap! chant which led into the very band themselves performing the song that will now always make me think of Jim Nelis: Furniture.

*Long story short: this is the first song by Horslips that had me turn to my husband and say 'Wait just a minute...this group had it going ON!'

**Earlier today, when listening to The Book of Invasions -- an album that the Tribute Band performed in its entirity last April at the CBS school, Omagh -- I was thinking 'here's a really beautiful Horslips song, but not always the first one that people will mention. We should hear it more.'

***Each day when I go to work, I pass by the grand 19th century edifice that the Pacific Railroad built for itself on One Market Street. That railroad. That trans-continental railroad. Those golden nails and silver bars. The one particular golden spike was driven into the ground at Promontory Utah in 1869. I'll understand that the international audience will not realize that this momentus event was just barely four years after the assasination of an American president and the end of a bitter, divisive internal struggle over whether we were going to be a cohesive country or not. Four score and seven years ago...But from April 14, 1865 to May 10, 1869, those silver bars were laid with haste across a vast expanse of wild land not yet even 'ours'. Ruthless and determined men like Stanford, Huntington, Crocker, Hopkins - hotels, banks, colleges and state parks bear their names to this day. But what of the men who were doing the actual work on the tracks and the rails? Well...they've got a helluva great rock song for themselves!

****McGinley Og!!! Hope you were there! And if you weren't: can we meet up this February!?!