Seattle’s Experience Music Project Hosts ‘AC/DC: Australia’s Family Jewels’ Exhibit

AC/DC fans who have a little vacation time coming up might want to take a trip to Seattle, where the Experience Music Project museum is currently hosting the massive 'AC/DC: Australia’s Family Jewels' exhibit.

If you've never been to the EMP, it's a rock fan's paradise -- so it's no wonder that the venue was granted exclusive North American rights to the AC/DC exhibit, which runs through the end of September.

Powerline reports the whole thing is the brainchild of Tim Fisher, curator of the Arts Centre in Melbourne, Australia, who says it's different from what you may be expecting. "Lots of people offered me gold albums or platinum albums [to display], but in the end I wasn’t that keen on reiterating how many albums they’d sold and that kind of thing," he said. "I was interested in the more personal history."

So what will you see? More than 400 items spanning the band’s entire career, including the original sheet music for 'You Shook Me All Night Long,' rare concert posters, the lyrics of 'Highway to Hell' handwritten by Bon Scott, a 1975 Angus Young costume, and tons more.

And speaking of Bon Scott, Fisher credits the late singer's mother for many of the artifacts in the exhibit, saying, “Once she had agreed to help, a lot of other people came on board and agreed to lend items.”

What makes the exhibit truly unique is the chronological way it's laid out. The story starts with a display of the Young family's passport applications and tracks their move from Scotland to Australia, and then follows with items from the band members’ various pre-AC/DC musical projects.

As the exhibit progresses, you see the evolution of the band itself -- as AC/DC grew in popularity, the photos, video clips and music grow to include stage costumes and props like the stage cannon used during the 1981 'For Those About To Rock' tour.

The end of the exhibit gives you the chance to pose in front of an AC/DC logo for a free picture that's later featured on EMP’s AC/DC Photo Booth Flickr page -- when you have the shot taken, you can even get your rock star freak on by holding an instrument and wearing a schoolboy jacket like Angus Young's.

“The audience for this exhibition consists of guys of my age who are mid-50s, and then mid-30s, and then younger kids,” says Fisher. “So we’ve found really three generations of people coming to the show.”

Look Inside the EMP's 'AC/DC: Australia’s Family Jewels' Exhibit