And she has vowed to start her Keeps on Rocking Going Hell For Leather Australian tour in Hobart next Thursday just as she has started her other 22 tours of this country.

''I'll be shaking my ass off,'' she told me in an interview from Hamburg in Germany last month. ''It's what I like to do.'' There can be no doubt that by the end of this tour, at the Royal Theatre in Canberra on September 26, Quatro's leather-clad derriere will still be shaking to the rhythm of her pounding rock beat.

The 152cm Quatro may be diminutive in stature, but she's now universally regarded as a veritable giant in the rock world. She has been producing hits for 36 years, and in all that time there has been no real indication that hers is a waning star.

Why would she contemplate quitting? As demand for tickets on this coming Australian tour clearly shows, her fans still want her, and they want her badly.

For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times