POP MUSIC REVIEW : LIONEL RICHIE AND BENIGN ROCK

Good, good, good , good vibrations. . . . That’s what you think of when you consider a concert by Lionel Richie, master of the happy romantic ballad and the humanistic dance single, the one-man “Up With People” of the ‘80s.

Sleaze ‘n’ tease sexuality. . . . That’s what you think of when you consider a concert by Sheila E., who used to act out one of the most pathetic come-on routines in show business.

Sheila’s appearance as the opening act on Richie’s current concert tour (which touched down Tuesday at the Forum for the first of three sold-out shows) isn’t entirely out of left field--after all, she did play percussion in Richie’s band before her solo career began. But the contrast between them does resonate with almost spiritual overtones:

Who will come out on top in this battle of good against nasty--Lionel’s power-of-positive-thinking-ness or Sheila’s crass eroticism?.

Richie promised at the start of Tuesday’s show that “the one ground rule is that anything and everything goes,” but you just know there won’t be any startling surprises with this guy, onstage or off.

It’s hard to recall as benign a singer who’s reached anywhere near such pop plateaus (15 million copies sold of one album alone) in recent years. In a time when America doesn’t seem safe from its own politicians, maybe it needs to feel safe with at least one of its primary entertainers.

Richie and his band came off as the happiest-looking crew this side of the Brady Bunch. Professional cynics shouldn’t be too quick to nay-say all that. Of all the major performers who are required to be that consistently cheery each night, Richie does the most consistent job of being convincing in that role, and who’s to say that happiness is shallow? Certainly anyone who ever fell sway to John Lennon’s “Imagine” would be risking hypocrisy to brand Richie’s new “Se La” or “Love Will Conquer All” as hokey.

Of the two smartest things Richie did during the evening, one was not singing “We Are the World,” though he did offer an eloquent thanksgiving-type spoken rap. The other key move was combining some of his best-known ballads--like “Say You, Say Me” and “Three Times a Lady”--into a medley.

With few of the trademark slow ballads included in their entirety, the mood was mostly surprisingly upbeat, and the staging silly and clever--including a trick that had three band members dangling upside down from the overhead rafters at the climax of “Dancing on the Ceiling.”

Richie doesn’t begin to know the meaning of his favorite word (“outrageous”), but he does know how to wax warm and put on a show, and then some.

It was apparent that Richie’s radiant good vibes have rubbed off on Sheila E., who emerged in her portion of the show as a consummate entertainer, happily free of some of the tacky and tasteless tactics she resorted to back when she was opening for Prince in the same arena.

Not that she’s suddenly become what you would exactly call demure --for a three-song duet with Richie during his set, she did appear in perhaps the tiniest black bra ever designed by man--but she seems to have found the right side of the fine line between playful sensuality and mean-spirited sexuality.

Though she’s toned herself down, Sheila E. still presents some of the threat that’s usually inherent and necessary in rock music. Richie most decidedly doesn’t.