E-Mail This Article to a Friend Bono voyage Introducing a man who needs no introduction BY JONATHAN PERRY

It’s not every day that you walk into J.J. Foley’s at 1 am and glance over to see the leader of the free world — or at least the leader of U2, which often seems like the same thing — sitting on a stool, cowboy hat on head, Amstel Light in hand, chatting amiably with the unwashed masses. It’s an even rarer occasion when that same Bono — just a couple of hours removed from U2’s second consecutive sold-out night at the TD Banknorth Garden — asks you to introduce him to an audience for whom he needs no introduction.

It’s a story not even my cab driver believed. But such was the surreal scene on Kingston Street a week ago Monday during a sendoff for the Globe’s senior pop critic, Steve Morse, who after 31 years at the newspaper took a voluntary buyout in the wake of cutbacks at the Globe’s corporate parent, the New York Times Company. "It’s safe to say I was completely blown away. I didn’t expect Bono to show up, and when he walked in, I just fell apart," said Morse later that week, still reeling from a late-night celebration that also included U2 manager Paul McGuinness, former Boston Garden president Larry Moulter, Fenway Recordings honcho Mark Kates, and several generations of editors, writers, and critics who like me have followed in Morse’s wake.

After I’d been introduced by Steve to Bono as the writer who had covered the previous night’s show for the Globe, the Fly shook my hand and thanked me for my "very generous" review. I thanked him for, well, being Bono. Emboldened by Guinness, I playfully apologized for my published observation that he was "bulky yet sensual" and joked that we at least had the first part of that equation in common. Right around then, glasses started clinking for a toast. Bono peered at me from behind his wrap-around shades and softly said, "Would you introduce me?" My heart exploded and then everything went kaleidoscopic, like that Mardi Gras acid-trip scene in Easy Rider. I was thrilled and terrified, and certain of one thing: when Bono requests you get your ass up on a table, you have no choice in the matter. Hell, even Dubya knows that when Bono talks, people listen.

I vaguely remember clambering up on the tabletop and saying something about "a guy here in the bar who happens to be the singer for the biggest rock-and-roll band in the world." Numb, I climbed down, and Bono stepped up to pay tribute to Morse as one of the first journalists to write about U2 in America. He joked about "opening for Steve Morse," and former J. Geils frontman Peter Wolf capped the toasts by leading a rousing cheer of "For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow."

"It was just an absolute dream to have your career validated by a person of that stature," said Morse. "It was mind-blowing that Peter Wolf came down too. I was just as honored that he was there. You want to go out with a bang, and I feel lucky to be able to say I did that. I’m still high." Yeah, me too.

Jonathan Perry can be reached at roughgems@aol.com