Continuing from the previous post....
The title of Paul Stump's excellent book on prog rock The Music's All That Matters captures the idea expressed in the anti-punk letter to NME - - we don't put on a show, we leave that to commercial bands, we don't go in for image, we're all about the music and nothing but the music...
But then again, one of the things that prog bands, or some prog bands, explored was, well, showmanship: theatrics, costumes.... Jethro Tull and Gabriel-era Genesis being only two of the most glaring examples
There is a good bit in Philip Auslander's excellent, unusually-angled study Performing Glam Rock, where he contrasts the hairy Underground's gestural language onstage with glam performers. He talks about how your prog or blues-heavy or acid-jam type band would project inwardness - as if totally absorbed in making music. Minimal eye contact with the audience, no banter.... at times almost acting as if the audience wasn't there. Eyes closed. No strutting or guitar poses or even much moving about on the stage. A fairly static, concentrating-hard-on-the-job sort of stage presence. Distance maintained between rock-as-art and pop-as-entertainment.
Interestingly, Wendy Fonarow in her excellent anthropological study of British indie rock Empire of Dirt talks about "gaze strategies" - how bands similarly project inwardness, a "lost in music" aura, almost obliviousness to the audience's existence. This suggests that as much as it comes from shyness and from the need to look down at all those foot pedals, the gazing at shoes is an instinctive re-irruption of the Underground era approach of anti-performance.
Slowdive did talk about how they were more influenced by Pink Floyd than Sex Pistols.
