I'm going to post this here in case somebody else has the problem.
Bert Belder, Node.js mailing list:
On your system "myhost.local" resolves to three different addresses (127.0.0.1, ::1, and fe80::1). Node prefers ipv4 over ipv6 so it'll try to connect to 127.0.0.1. Nothing is listening on 127.0.0.1:8080 so the connect() syscall fails with ECONNREFUSED. Node doesn't retry with any of the other resolved IPs - it just reports the error to you. A simple solution would be to replace 'localhost' by the intended destination ip address, '::1'.
Whether this behavior is right is somewhat open for debate, but this is what causes it.
Bert