Here in the UK I have had a few times when people have been non-complimantary on my performance, basically because they think its a matter of just pushing a few buttons and touching a few keys, I think the problem comes from music programs on TV where a lot of bands mime and the keyboard players tend play one note here and there, they are more than probably not keybord players at all just merely stage fillers, that creates a bad impression in my opinion.
I always amazes me that if you play keyboards in a band your not ridiculed in anyway, but if you play an arranger keyboard your are looked upon as a second rate musician, I just explain to my audience that my left hand is the band conductor and I am the soloist on the right hand so I make my right hand playing very visiual to everybody in the room and they know I'm actually playing something, it also helps if you use two keyboards stacked so your two hands are not on the same instrument.