Progress bar while tar'ing.

tarbar.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]; then
    echo "Specify one folder to compress"
    exit 1
fi
if [[ -d $1 ]]; then
    folder=`basename $1`
    size=`du -sb $1 | cut -f 1`
    tar cfp - $1 | pv -perbt -s $size | bzip2 -c > $folder.tar.bz2
else
    echo "It needs to be a folder"
    exit 1
fi

Ofcourse you can replace bzip2 with gzip.
The options for pv are progress eta rate bytes timer. You can skip these modifiers, they are the default anyway.