POP MUSIC REVIEW : Phil Collins: the Right Mix for Calming Frazzled Nerves : The sold-out concert at Irvine Meadows proved to be smooth and sweet, with a bit of a bubbly kick, even with no cutting edge.

A lot of critics don’t have much use for Phil Collins, and I’ve always been one of them.

Pop critics are always looking for music with an edge, with intensity, something that will take them on a wild ride into the unexpected. We go to shows hoping that this will be another night where we get to take that trip on somebody’s magic, swirling ship. Phil Collins? Nice guy, handy with a melodic hook, but always something of a tugboat captain, puttering in the safest of harbors.

On Saturday night at Irvine Meadows, though, this critic finally found a use for Phil Collins--thanks to a frazzling hour spent crawling the last two traffic-clogged miles to get to Collins’ sold-out concert, the first of his two weekend shows at Irvine. Who needs music with an edge when you’re already on edge? Who wants a wild ride when you’ve just navigated the constricted funnel that passes for the Irvine Center Drive exit on the southbound 405 (can somebody explain why, with a total of three exit lanes available on that ramp, only one of them is available for amphitheater-bound traffic?).

After that, 2 1/2 hours guzzling Vodka Collins might have been my best bet, but 2 1/2 hours listening to Phil worked almost as well. Since both are sweet and smooth, with a bit of a bubbly kick, it hardly made a difference. In any case, I was duly relaxed within minutes.

(Collins’ show had such a salutary, calming effect on me that it almost made me regret the review I wrote describing his latest mega-hit album, “ . . . But Seriously,” as “the sound of a fat cat purring.” Since Collins griped in a subsequent Times interview that he was being targeted for criticism just because he’s rich, let’s get it straight that the “fat cat” appellation, as the record review made clear, referred not to his bank account, but to his unwillingness to take artistic risks or bring any kind of a cutting edge to his too-glossy, too-temperate sound. From Leo Tolstoy to John Lennon, great wealth has never been an impediment to great art, as long as inspiration and daring persisted.)

It was easy to see, as Collins’ show unfolded, why he is so popular. His voice--a little grainy, a little reedy--goes down easily and has an unassuming appeal. With it, he sings choruses that beg to be hummed. Collins’ sharp ensemble of 11 singers and players executed everything with true-to-the-record accuracy, with perhaps a bit of extra energy coming through on the up-tempo numbers, thanks to the crisp, emphatic drumming of Chester Thompson, Collins’ longtime buddy from Genesis’ road band, and a solid bass thud from Lee Sklar.

Collins himself was a likable fellow who surrounded himself with warm, comfortable imagery. Before it lifted to reveal the band, a huge curtain shielding the stage set portrayed a merry-go-round topped by a sign: “Mr. Collins’s Galloping Horses.” Early in the show, when Collins started stomping around the stage with his arms flapping back and forth, he resembled a wind-up toy soldier. Collins’ amiable, humorously self-deprecating persona was right in line with those cuddly, childhood images. How many rock stars are willing to make themselves the butt of a joke about having less than titanic sexual prowess, as Collins did? Or about needing a hair transplant? This sort of stuff sets an audience at ease.

But Collins’ niceness and mildness extended to most of his music, as well--and that won’t do for those of us who (on less traffic-addled nights) want some ferocity. Collins gave a winning introduction to “Another Day in Paradise,” his hit about homelessness (after joking about how most of us gripe about small things, he asked concert-goers to drop $1 in charity buckets after the show as a contribution to agencies that help the homeless in Orange County and Los Angeles). But the song itself, like others Collins sang about strife in Northern Ireland and South Africa, wafted along with much the same seamless sound and gently melancholy hue that characterize his romantic ballads. Good topical songs probe and provoke. Collins’ mannerly laments sounded like so much idle hand-wringing.

While they seemed scant in the show’s long expanses of the safe and familiar, Collins and his band did have their moments of invention. An opening Afro-Brazilian number highlighting the horn section and backup singers, and a long mid-show instrumental stretch akin to an old Traffic workout, were pleasant departures from the show’s routine of by-the-book hits. Collins’ best song as a solo artist, “In the Air Tonight,” packed the wallop and toughness that he otherwise lacked. Hammering at his drums, and clenching that easygoing voice, Collins sounded like a man about to deliver retribution for some long-festering wrong.

If only Collins could get in a sufficiently ornery mood to write more songs like that. Maybe it would help if he drove to the show the next time he sells out Irvine Meadows.