The Battle of the Bands at Theatr Mwldan brought to a conclusion this year's week-long AMP festival in Cardigan.

Four bands competed for the top prize of £200 and most tastes were catered for, no matter where you stand on the musical spectrum.

The biggest surprise of the evening, among the school hall atmospherics, was to find that one of the bands, Crazy 88, was on this occasion not a band at all, but a lone, if rather splendid, singer, Chris, caught in the spotlight with his backing tape.

Confused? We were.

Although undeniably a natural entertainer with a fine voice, his leading around the stage playing air guitar and interacting with his imaginary band was a little too contrived to be convincing.

Either Chris had mislaid his band on the way or he is a clever karaoke king, who knows? There was no doubt about Collision Theory however.

A cherub-cheeked collection of springy pop-punk action, their songs of teen torments echoed to a familiar template. But, like a buy one get one free offer on the elixir of youth, there was a second pop-punk band on offer.

Billed as Roadkill they appeared on stage with the new and very unpunk name of Neverlane (and it may have changed again by now).

Positively muscling their way onto your lap (for this was an all seated affair for some reason) Neverlane were always hyperactive, bristling with raw and confrontational attitude, as they rattled frantically along with plenty of guitar action, dishing out playful fallabout punk and enjoying it enormously, which is after all what being in a band is all about.

They may have pushed all the right punk buttons, but they were not too cool to hold back from having some fun with the Rednex one-hit wonder from 1994, Cotton Eye Joe. Do you remember it? Shame on you.

Sasquatch shook off any cosmic dust they had encountered on their way to earth to imprint upon us their psychedelic space rock. It was clever stuff and with some gorgeous other-worldly guitar - just the sort of thing you need to drift off to some distant galaxy.

But during their cosmically rendered reworking of Robert Johnson's Come Into My Kitchen, the judges left the adjudicating area, for they had already decided on the winner - the unbeatable Neverlane.

And you can't argue with that.