AC/DC
Family Jewels

December 2005
Released: 2005, Epic Records
Rating: 5.0/5
Reviewer: Lord of the Wasteland

As part of their 30th anniversary, AC/DC has put together a 2-disc, three-hour DVD set, cleverly titled FAMILY JEWELS and given fans each and every video clip they have ever done. Along with the eye-catching silver digipack, a 24-page color booklet outlines the details of each clip as well as a short essay written by ROLLING STONE scribe, David Fricke. There isn’t much else besides this but with a whopping forty videos to wade through, this package is more than enough to chew on.



The first DVD is probably the real catch here. There are lots of early rarities including an Australian TV appearance from 1975 featuring Bon Scott in a schoolgirl outfit and pigtails. At only 15 years of age here, Angus Young looks like a baby but when he wails on the guitar, he’s all grown up. The band clearly had fun in these early promo clips dressing as altar boys for “Let There Be Rock” but once the budgets got bigger with HIGHWAY TO HELL’s success, the videos also improved. Interestingly, “Girls Got Rhythm” and “Highway To Hell” were filmed just ten days before the untimely death of Scott and the clips taken from BACK IN BLACK were still done only five months after. The second DVD is full of clips that MTV has played to death over the past twenty years and since the entire point of this collection is to house all of AC/DC’s videos, it can’t be faulted but who really needs to see “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Hells Bells” and “For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)” again? The videos on disc two were all previously released on the FLY ON THE WALL, WHO MADE WHO and CLIPPED VHS releases, so there really is nothing new to offer here besides having them all in one place and on a modern format. The mini “movie” that centered around the FLY ON THE WALL clips is shown in its entirety here and it has been almost twenty years since I saw it, so a little walk down memory lane put a smile on my face while watching.



Along with Iron Maiden’s VISIONS OF THE BEAST and Judas Priest’s ELECTRIC EYE collections, FAMILY JEWELS brings together a career video retrospective that will tickle pink any classic metalhead like myself. These videos and songs were part of my upbringing and formative years, so kick back with a beer and watch some of the best guitar rock that has been ever laid down unfold on FAMILY JEWELS.