For nearly three decades, Pat Benatar has been a major player in the world of rock ’n’ roll.

One of the few women in the business who loomed large as a hitmaker from the get-go, Benatar, aided by consummate rock guitarist/husband Neil “Spyder” Giraldo, has accumulated four Grammy Awards and has seven platinum and three gold albums to her credit.

Still in top form, Benatar and Giraldo are on a concert tour of North America this summer. They stopped off at the Robert Mondavi Winery last Saturday, playing to more than 1,000 new and hardcore fans.

Their 75-minute show included material that ranged from her first 1979 hit, “Heartbreaker,” to “Everytime I Fall Back,” a ’90s release that got new life from the singer’s appearances on “The Young and the Restless” earlier this year.

Benatar’s polished mainstream pop/rock made her one of the more popular female vocalists of the early ’80s. Although she comes on like an arena rocker with rough-and-tumble sexuality and powerful vocals, her music is straight pop/rock underneath all Giraldo’s power chords.

The New York native enjoyed immediate success upon the 1979 release of her debut album, “In the Heat of the Night.” Her first single, “Heartbreaker,” quickly established the fierce, tough but distinctly female persona that would characterize the most successful phase of Benatar’s career. The singer’s follow-up recording, “Crimes of Passion,” proved to be the exact opposite of a sophomore slump, increasing Benatar’s exposure and netting her first Top 10 pop hit with the unforgettable “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” a song that has become a staple of every karaoke library.

With the launch of MTV in August of 1981, Benatar was perfectly positioned to benefit in a big way. With her second album still spawning hits and her third release, “Precious Time,” waiting in the wings, the singer had a storehouse of songs and video clips she was more than happy to supply to the fledgling cable network. “You Better Run,” in fact, was the second video shown on MTV, and the image of the attractive, short-haired yet utterly feminine Benatar became one of the most distinctive visual cues of the early ’80s rock music landscape.

Although she’s dabbled in traditional blues as well as R&B, Benatar is at her best with the patented arena rock sound. She took a break from the road in the mid-’90s, but is delighting her longtime fan base by playing venues both large and small in Canada and the United States this summer.

Just for the record, the 55-year-old rocker looks terrific — still the svelte powerhouse she was two decades ago. Wearing a black jacket over a leopard-patterned silk blouse and form-fitting black and gray-striped pants, Benatar told the crowd she loved performing against the “gorgeous settings” of the Napa Valley and enjoyed sipping Mondavi wines.

Although she and Giraldo spent considerable time with their staff prior to the performance perfecting the sound mix, the sound was muddled for a good third of the show. At times, it was difficult hearing Benatar’s lyrics on the opening number, “All Fired Up.”

By the time she and Giraldo slipped into a relatively acoustic mode for “Every Time I Fall Back,” the sound problems had, for the most part, been resolved. That was followed by another outstanding acoustic number, “Strawberry Wine (Life is Sweet),” from 1997’s “Innamorata,” featuring drummer Chris Ralles on cajon and Mick Mahan on bass.

Giraldo and Benatar were at their best churning out a pair of charttoppers, “We Belong to the Night” and “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” Giraldo’s blistering guitar solos also helped underscore the important message against child abuse contained in the vocalist’s “Hell is for Children.”

Benatar wrapped up the performance with a pair of ’80s hits, reprising the hard rock swagger of “Love is a Battlefield” and “Promises in the Dark,” ending with the lead-off single that launched her lengthy career, “Heartbreaker.”

Her fans were ecstatic. For them, Pat Benatar is indeed invincible.

A perky troubador with an uncomplicated, straightforward sound, Lindsay Rush accompanied herself on guitar as the evening’s opening act. Her half-hour set of mostly originals was reminiscent of Lisa Loeb in a “nothing-too-deep” frame of mind.

The 2008 Robert Mondavi Summer Festival wraps up this coming Saturday with the wine country debut of UB40. Tickets are $90 for unreserved lawn seating and $120 for reserved seats. To order tickets, call 1-888-769-5299 or log onto www.robert

mondaviwinery.com.