The Show That Never Ends cover art

The Show That Never Ends

The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock

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The Show That Never Ends

By: David Weigel
Narrated by: Rudy Sanda
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About this listen

The Show That Never Ends is the behind-the-scenes story of the extraordinary rise and fall of progressive ("prog") rock, epitomized by such classic, chart-topping bands as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Emerson Lake & Palmer, and their successors Rush, Styx, and Asia. With inside access to all the key figures, Washington Post national reporter David Weigel tells the story with the gusto and insight prog rock's fans (and its haters) will relish. Along the way he explains exactly what was "progressive" about prog rock, how it arose from psychedelia and heavy metal, why it dominated the pop charts but then became so despised that it was satirized in This Is Spinal Tap, and what fuels its resurgent popularity today.

©2017 David Weigel (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books History & Criticism Music

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All stars
Most relevant
All the important bands and moments are here... very enjoyable! A really good narration, too.

Great for any lover of Prog Rock!

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''Tis good however it features heavily on a few bands. ELP YES King Crimson and Robert Fripp etc. Could have more on some other bands such as Pink Floyd. Some missed.
Some accents (there are not a huge amount) are off putting Ian Anderson does not have a Scottish accent!! but....
Worth a listen

For prog rock fans but

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This history of Progressive rock is an attempt to tell a story that is full of myth and opinion. In its own way it tries to tell a straight up version of events from the mid sixties to the new prog of the 21st-century. However it really only catches a narrow viewpoint of events particularly because it focuses heavily on ELP and Emerson and Fripp. It also fails to capture a real emotional resonance of the music or the real success of the first wave. Instead it feels sterile and factual in a nerdy but bland way.
In the audio version there are some truly dreadful moments where attempts at English and Scottish accents are teeth grinding really bad and it would’ve been much better if the narrator had not attempted them.

Informed but sterile

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very interesting tale of the classics bands. I learned so much about their conceptions, challenges, how they created some of the music and how their fame grew and dwindled for some.

Unfortunately the modern era of prog is sloppily squeezed into last chapter barely scraping the surface of what has actually happened since approx. the late 80s. But one might claim they're not prog rock bands in the old sense.

Sometimes though the telling of the history has been a little haphazardly put together and explains things briefly over a large period of time, followed by an event that then focuses on one or two specific times. The lack of chronological order makes it a little confusing if you're not really paying attention. In some regards it's downright misleading. the telling of dream theater's development for example was a mess (but that's part of the poorly put together last chapter so...)

Narration is OK. Sound quality is great. I just would have preferred an English narrator over an American for this particular book. I mean the majority is about English bands in English places. And I won't even mention the attempted accents.

I enjoyed it overall don't get me wrong. I did learn a lot about classic prog. I just think the writer should have quit while they were ahead and not gone into modern era at all. And the narration could have been done better to make it perfect.

pretty good story of prog - v interesting

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I got through to the end of this, which I don’t always. There were some interesting bits and some other bits that weren’t so interesting. I would just add that the narrator decided that he was going to attempt accents and this was quite extraordinary at times. He portrays Kevin Ayres as a bit of a cockney which of course he wasn’t even remotely, but the absolute pinnacle is his impression of Fish. I have never heard anybody anywhere do such an awful accent. You might almost say that it was worth listening to the whole of the book just to get his Fish.

Fairly interesting if you like Prog

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