The Show That Never Ends

The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock

By: David Weigel

Narrated by: Rudy Sanda

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

Enjoyable Tale of Musical Omphaloskepsism

Listening to The Show That Never Ends made me nostalgic for the distant future, Oh!

Good but too narrow in focus

Great detail on a few artists, but I was disappointed that the scope was so narrow. He leaves out Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson and Frank Zappa/Mothers, for example. King Crimson, Yes, Genesis and ELP were only a part of Prog Rock!

Interesting story but...

It's a good recollection of a music genre that I enjoy and I'm guessing for anyone that has enjoyed some prog rock. This might be one that I wish I'd read the written version of so that the really awkward accents the narrator used frequently could have been avoided. To me it seemed that Yes is given more attention to than other bands. Still an informative listen.

Worst. Narrator. Ever.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He mispronounced band names, song names, and character names. The lead character in "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" is not "rah-EL"! If the narrator took a few moments to zip through YouTube and listen to some pronunciations for song titles in particular, the book would have been much better. This aging prog-rock geek, for one, would have given it a better review.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me mad. For a book about meticulous musicians and the meticulousness, it was shoddily read. Ugh, I'm still furious over it.

The worst accents in audiobooks

The story is great; the narrator, however, gets cute and decides to try on thick accents. The problem is, they're Dick Van Dyke In Mary Poppins bad. And often just incorrect. Despite being born in Scotland, Ian Anderson doesn't sound like Scrooge McDuck.

When he started mispronouncing Moog, and giving Steve Howe a cockney accent, I bailed. I'd rather have Siri read the book to me.