AC/DC: Family Jewels

If you're an AC/DC fan you'll love this collection! It has many early TV broadcasts from Australian channels and progresses onwards through their fame and fortune. I saw some old videos on here that I had only heard about in the past; I met a die-hard AC/DC fan packing my household goods when I was getting ready to move and he said that some of the stuff on the DVD he had been waiting years to see.

I'm not into AC/DC as much as some others who have reviewed this are, but even from a moderate fan who knows most of their songs I was really impressed by this compilation. You can tell they really had the fans in mind when they put this together.

All music DVDs should be this good!

As a hardcore AC/DC fan I was stoked at the release of this DVD. It contains most of the video clips that AC/DC have done, but however, it is not all of them I was disappointed to find out.

On disc one is the Bon era, there are some clips i'd never seen before like Show Business and some clips from Highway To Hell performed on a live show in '79. (tho, they are miming and not playing live!)

On disc 2 is most of the Brian era.

But what was truly disappointing was how many clips where left off. There where many alternate clips from the Bon era, and many live clips that later replaced Studio clips. Then as it comes to an end, the last clip is off The Razors Edge album (1990) Are You Ready... Rock Your Heart Out has been left off, as well as all the clips after that from Big Gun, the Ballbreaker album and Stiff Upper Lip.

Both DVD's run for about 2 hours each, which makes me wonder who the hell did the DVD formatting? A DVD will hold 4 hours of footage without any worries, so this being a 2 disc set, could have all fit onto one disc or contained the missung and alternate clips too.

Notable missing clips are - Long Way To The Top (original studio version) - Dirty Deeds (2 alternate versions) - Dog Eat Dog (alternate versions) - Highway To Hell (original studio version) - Girls Got Rhythm (original studio version) - Let There Be Rock (live versions) - You Shook Me All Night Long (original studio version) - TNT (original, and Live versions) - Let Me Put My Love Into You - Nervous Shakedown (both versions) - Rock Your Heart Out - Big Gun - Hard As A Rock - Hail Ceaser - Cover You In Oil - Ballbreaker (live) - Stiff Upper Lip - Satellite Blues - Safe In NY City

It truly should have been a 3 disc set, or fix it right and make a true double set including bonus alternate clips. But oh well, it's here now. What is on it is worth owning and it's good to have them all in a nifty set.

Edit: AC/DC later released some of the missing clips on the Nack in Black Dual Disc and Plug Me In as well as some bonus discs... plus, keep In mind, YouTube wasn't what it is today when I wrote this review.

AC/DC: Family jewels is, simply put, a great DVD, and worth buying for any AC/DC fan. Contains 20 clips from from the Bon era, and 20 from the brian era. But... that's it. Disc 2 has a discography on it, but that's the only extra on this DVD.

Now, the clips are great, don't get me wrong, but there could have been more. There is a clip of "Can I sit next to you girl" with original singer Dave Evans, Which would have been a great inclusion to the DVD. And there aren't any clips from Ballbreaker or Stiff upper lip, or even Live. What there is is good, but there could have been more.

The major problems with these clips, is that most of them we've already seen hundreds of times.

Though, all the clips are great, the best are: Baby please don't go, Show Business, It's a long way to the top(If you want to rock and roll), T.N.T, Jailbreak, Dirty Deeds done dirt cheap Let there be rock, sin city, Highway to hell, Hells bells, Back in black, What do you do for money honey, Rock and roll ain't noise pollution, Lets get it up, For those about to rock(We salute you), Shake your foundations, Thunderstruck and Are you ready.

Most of the one's I selected are in that list because of the songs, but the clip for songs such as jailbreak are just fantastic(So cheap it's great).

I'll be frank - I love AC/DC. They are an excellent band who held up well with two different singers.

The first DVD contains song videos back from the time of Bon Scott (either from 1974 - 1979 or 1975 - 1979). These show the performance of AC/DC's original front man before his death.

The second DVD contains song videos from the time of Brian Johnson (possibly from 1980 - sometime in the early 1990's). These show the performance of Brian Johnson, AC/DC's second front man who shows that he can hold Bon's spot very well.

As for the rest of the band, they're all there doing what they normally do best- rocking out hard.

And it's always a pleasure to see Angus Young go crazy on stage.

BUY IT!

My summary pretty much tells it all. There is a lot of great music for AC/DC fans on this two disc set.

I loved seeing Bon Scott on the first disc. He was a great showman and really funny in his gestures. You won't see him on any of their other DVD's so this is a bonus.

Personally, I prefer their live concert DVD's overall (Live at Donnington, No Bull, Stiff Upper Lip Live) over the MTV type production.

If you grew up in the MTV era and love AC/DC, this is definitely your DVD.