Perhaps the most influential genre of music today is Rock Music with subgenres that include Metal, Grunge, and Punk. It cannot be understated that Rock music shaped the tunes we all listen to, and enjoy today. But when it comes to bands, it is difficult to determine which one had the biggest impact on the genre. There are tiers, but not a definitive ranking since it is mostly based on preference. Is it Van Halen, led by the legendary skills of Eddie Van Halen? Is it the Beatles, who most of the legendary rock bands will claim as inspiration? This is a tournament to determine who Eaglecrest’s pick is, and the school has spoken. The best rock band is… QUEEN!
Round 1, Day 1:
The debut fights of the Rock N’ Roll tournament provided high-scoring games that made for exciting results, so without further ado, here are the recaps.
The day started with The Beatles blowing out The Who 48-6. In an unsurprising victory to start off, it almost makes one wonder, will the Beatles do it again going up against a potentially stronger opponent? Analysts say most likely.
In the closest of the matchups, Led Zeppelin would win by a score of 30-26 beating Pink Floyd, and moving on to face the Beatles. A shootout between two legendary bands, where neither one looked to be the winner till the very end. Both started strong but Pink Floyd would stall out at the end. Led Zeppelin moves on!
Now to the other quadrant. We’ll start out with Black Sabbath convincingly beating Eagles 43-11. Black Sabbath should be considered a dark-horse to come out on top of the 60s- Early 70s section.
Queen would Roll the Stones in a 41-14 blowout ensuring that we wouldn’t get a Vietnam War song matchup between Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones. Nonetheless, Queen is moving on to face Black Sabbath to determine who moves on to the Elite 8. The late 70s -Early 80s voting starts Friday, 03/29 and runs through the weekend till Tuesday, 04/02. Vote now while you have the chance because this division arguably features the best to offer.
Round 1, Day 2:
Although the late 70s and early 80s first round had slightly lower participation than the previous fights, the matchups still included some high-scoring games and no lack of thrills.
Metallica would start off by sending Journey off the bracket in a 37-12 fight. Journey is a great band, just caught up in a bad circumstance, facing off against almost undisputedly the greatest metal band of all time is a tough task, and yes, they lost. Journey still managed 12 votes against a favorite, and that deserves some credit.
Van Halen would beat Pantera in the battle of legendary guitarists Eddie Van Halen versus Dimebag Darrell. It could’ve gone either way, but in the end, Van Halen would win it 36-11. Perhaps the greatest guitarist of all time just commits an absolute war crime on a band that could be ranked in the top 40 of all time.
AC/DC had by far the biggest win of the tournament beating The Ramones in a 42-7 blowout. This is fair, many people can agree that The Ramones are a one-hit wonder, and it isn’t their fault that prime Rock N’ Roll took place when they were in their prime.
In the closest match of the day Def Leppard and Motley Crue would go back and forth till Def Leppard pulled ahead on Saturday morning to eventually win it 29-21. This upcoming round includes bands from the late 80s to early 90s. Go vote now!
Round 1, Day 3:
Day 3 featured matchups of bands from the late ’80s to early ’90s, and out of eight bands coming in, four came out as winners. Here are the recaps.
Match one featured a favorite in Nirvana taking on Weezer. In a rather predictable fight, Nirvana would win 37-8. As a result, Weezer actually looks like Buddy Holly… gone in one way or another.
In a surprising will of strength, Megadeth put up a strong fight in a losing battle against Blink-182 with a 27-16 final vote. There isn’t even much wrong with this one, it was just a simple version of the better band winning. Megadeth is great, but they will always be living in the shadow of Metallica, that is why Blink-182 won because of their originality, not being in the shadow of bands who are clearly better than them.
In the closest matchup of the tournament thus far, Radiohead pulled off a comeback against Green Day to win it 23-22. In the best matchup of the first round two contenders entered, and in a back and forth battle, one was left standing, that ONE just happened to be Radiohead.
In the final game, Guns N’ Roses would beat the Beastie Boys 26-19. It has been a recent subject of debate whether the Beastie Boys belonged in a rock tournament. On one hand, they had all of the characteristics of a rock band during their prime, on the other hand, they are commonly considered a rap group. But, considering that they didn’t even make it past the first round, I guess that’s all of the information needed. In the finale of the first round, we feature bands from the late 90s to the present day. Go vote for which four bands make it to the next round!
Round 1, Day 4:
The final day of round one provided some usual blowouts, a close matchup that came down to the very last minutes, and just overall fun. Here are the recaps:
Foo Fighters stomped out Limp Bizkit in a well-deserved 37-9 blowout. Foo Fighters is a band that any modern-day music enjoyer will know about. Limp Bizkit will forever be known for either being the worst band in history, or Woodstock ‘98. Either way, Foo Fighters wins and moves on.
This is the battle of two bands who have seemingly topped the chart of modern-day music, becoming legends. Linkin Park would top Fall Out Boy by a score of 27-18. There is a reason as to why it was only somewhat close, and everyone knows why. Fall Out Boy is a great band with many timeless hits. Linkin Park was just too much and that’s the discussion.
Slipknot would claim their well-deserved win against Oasis by winning 38-6. There really isn’t even a recap to be performed here. Slipknot is a band known for being annoying, weird, and experimental. Oasis was ruined by that one song that guitar stores around the world cringe when hearing.
Of course, the closest matchup of the day had to be the last one. In a thriller that came down to a minute before polls closed, Alice in Chains would win 23-22. In another of the great battles of this tournament, we are moving onto the second round. Day 1 of round 2 will include the matchups from the 60s to early 70s and late 70s to early 80s, VOTE NOW for who moves on.
Round 2, Day 1:
The first day of round two produced some good games despite the slightly lower voter turnout. Here are the recaps of matchups from both the 60s- early 70s and Late 70s- early 80s.
Led Zeppelin would surprisingly hold its own against the Beatles for the first day of play, but The Beatles were just too strong and overwhelmed Led Zeppelin, winning by a score of 24-15 which was surprisingly the closest of the scores today. Led Zeppelin could’ve made it far, the only problem was that anyone who goes against the Beatles is almost guaranteed to be destroyed, so props to them for trying.
Queen continues its run by beating Black Sabbath in a match that also happened to be scored 24-15. It is pretty astonishing that Queen has been able to beat The Rolling Stones and now Black Sabbath, look out for them in the final four, out of any band, they look to have the best chance to beat The Beatles.
Moving into the section that covers the late 70s to early 80s and starting with a controversial take, Metallica beat Van Halen by a score of 29-8. Hot take, but Van Halen should’ve gotten more votes. Metallica in every way deserved to win, but if it wasn’t for Van Halen, metal wouldn’t have moved in the direction it did. Van Halen was the one to stylize the commonly used metal trick ‘Tapping’ in which instead of strumming on the body of the guitar, you use pull-offs on the neck to speed up your playing, many music fans won’t understand a word I just said, but no matter how much complaining, it doesn’t change the outcome. Metallica moves on.
In the final match of the day, AC/DC beat Def Leppard 28-8. Not even much else to say, AC/DC is simply a more iconic band, and with hits such as “Thunderstruck” and “Highway to Hell”, they propelled past Def Leppard to move on and face Metallica. The next round covers winners from the late 80s to early 90s and late 90s to the present day. VOTE NOW!
Round 2, Day 2:
Day 6 featured the winners from the late ’80s to the early ’90s, and late ’90s to the present day. There was plenty of fun to go around, including the first 50-pointer in RBC history. We went a bit out of order to accommodate this achievement but read all about it in today’s recaps.
Foo Fighters would beat Linkin Park in a fight that ended 38-15. The two alternative rock/ post-grunge bands faced off, and ultimately the creator of the post-grunge genre would win, and Foo Fighters moved on to the 3rd round.
Slipknot continues their run by beating Alice in Chains 37-18, in a fair fight, not much else to say in this case. But, Slipknot has to fight its way through Foo Fighters in order to keep going, then in the event it wins it will have to go through Nirvana or Radiohead, so count the days because Slipknot’s future in this tournament is pretty bleak.
Radiohead in a surprising, but also unsurprising action, beat Guns N’ Roses 33-22. It was a very close fight till about the afternoon of the 11th, when Radiohead pulled ahead. You could very much consider it upset of the tournament considering the amount of Guns N’ Roses songs that will go down as top 100 all time compared to what Radiohead has done, at the end of the day, Radiohead finished with more votes than Guns N’ Roses so Radiohead moves on.
In the moment you’ve all been waiting for, Nirvana dismantled Blink-182 by a score of 50-6. I wrote earlier that there was nothing to say about Slipknot winning and while that is true, there is NOTHING you could possibly say about this fight besides, what Nirvana did to Blink-182 is almost a crime, never before has any single thing of the RBC dropping 50 on another competitor which is what makes this so shocking. End of story.
Round 3 features the top 8 voted teams, many instant classics, and has the potential to lead into two very good final four matchups. Vote Now.
Round 3, Day 1:
The quarter-finals produced a little bit of everything, we had an upset, we had a blowout, and of course, we’ve got two classic semi-final matchups, here are the recaps, again slightly out of order.
Starting on the right side, Nirvana handed another beating to its opponent, this time Radiohead with a 32-12 win. While not as impressive as the previous 50-6 beating of Blink-182, Nirvana went in, handled business, and beat the competitor. Radiohead wasn’t better than Nirvana but had they beaten THE grunge band, they most definitely would’ve taken the title for Cinderella Band of the Tournament. Nirvana moves on to the final four.
Foo Fighters would beat Slipknot 29-14 to win the title of the best band of the late 90s to present-day. To be fair, the bands who made it into this division could’ve been way better picked, so it isn’t like it was a very challenging task, but Foo Fighters will move on to face Nirvana in the final four in the Grohl Band Bowl.
Now over to the Classic Rock Conference side, in the battle of two of arguably the most iconic bands in rock n’ roll history, Metallica beats AC/DC 34-9 to advance. As is common with Metallica’s fights, the undisputed greatest metal band ever wins again, just this time taking on a bit harder of a competition. Nobody would say that Metallica’s path has been easy as they’ve taken on three legends in Journey, Van Halen, and now AC/DC, but when a legendary band is able to destroy other legendary bands, that is god-level strength and Metallica should be looked at as the favorite to win the whole thing.
It is only fitting that we saved the best for last. In a shocking turn of events, Queen upset The Beatles, crazy how this whole voting thing works. But anyway, Queen won 25-20 in a game that went back and forth till Monday night. It is surprising to see the undisputed favorite to win the whole thing go down, but votes don’t lie, end of story. This next round will determine our finalists, go vote for who you think the best two bands are.
Round 4, Day 1:
After four rounds and a total of thirty games played/polled, we are finally down to two bands in the final tournament of the 2023-24 year, and ‘oh boy’, it has been fun. Here are the recaps of the Final Four round.
Nirvana continued its tradition of blowing out bands who we all deep down know are better than, this time it was Foo Fighters with the score was 45-19. Nirvana hasn’t let off the gas all tournament and it seems that a lot of people like them if they keep winning by so much, we’ll have to see if it continues in the finale round.
Now, at the beginning of the tournament of all bands, Queen was likely not one thought to be in the running for champion. After all it would have to go through The Rolling Stones and Black Sabbath, and even if Queen made it through these bands, they’d surely have the Beatles waiting to knock them off. Well… they Rolled the Stones, they destroyed Black Sabbath and then they Beat the Beatles. But, we aren’t even done yet. Metallica would have been thought of as the one to silence Queen but, nope, Queen won 35-29. Queen goes to the finals to face Nirvana and we’ve got another thriller. Nirvana, the band who blew out everybody they faced, and Queen, now to see who takes the title of EHS’s Favorite Rock Band.
Round 5, Day 1:
The Nirvana vs Queen finals, while unpredictable from the start was iconic, and was definitely at the top of the list of finals games we’ve had. In a battle of two iconic bands, here is the recap of each band’s path to the finals, along with the finals recap.
Queen didn’t have an easy path to the finals, they had to first go through the loaded 60s- Early 70s division which included iconic bands such as The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, and most importantly The Beatles, all of whom Queen would beat in close fights. After that, they’d barely edge out Metallica to make it through to the finals. Queen fought its way through every band thrown its way and it very realistically shouldn’t have won some of those fights. On the other hand, Nirvana had a somewhat easy run to the finals, blowing by Weezer, Blink-182, Radiohead, and Foo Fighters, with a combined vote record of 164-45, it cannot be understated how dominant Nirvana was against its opponents, whether that was based on Nirvana itself or the competition they faced is up for interpretation, but they made it.
Now in the finals, it was rather unpredictable what would happen, would Queen finally be silenced, or would Nirvana’s reign of terror come to an end? Well, it would be all Queen throughout the whole thing as they’d win it 68-46 while Nirvana had a push in the second half of the voting period, it ultimately wasn’t enough and now we know that when it comes to bands, Queen is Eaglecrest’s favorite.
