Does my band look big in this?

The tartan-clad Bay City Rollers, the hockey-masked Slipknot, the suited and white-booted Hives... They all have one thing in common, says Steve Jelbert: they like to dress up

It's simple, really. When a group of performers walk on stage, looking dapper in matching, well-cut outfits, the audience is sure to tingle in anticipation of the quality of the show to come, trying but failing to ignore associations with true greats such as the Beatles, the Temptations or James Brown and the Famous Flames.

But if they wander on in shabby T-shirts and jeans, then, by God, the most you can hope for is impassioned emoting, and 10 times out of 10, that's the best you're going to get. A defined look can be contagious. From the massed ranks of Dixons sales staff who now inhabit Hives shows, to the sea of teenagers in reversed red baseball caps at Limp Bizkit's occasional angst-fests, a simple visual signifier proves irresistible.

Damn it, people who grew up hating their school uniforms are now going out to buy new ones to visit such shrines as the nightclub School Disco and its ilk. For a supposed nation of non-conformists, we British just cannot resist identifying ourselves as members of a tribe, even if only on a night out.

Of course, choosing the correct image in the first place is a help. Kevin Rowland and Dexys Midnight Runners may have got away with their early donkey-jacket/sports-bag look and its successor, the raggle-taggle, grubby-dungaree, Celtic-soul-brother style (which pre-empted Angela's Ashes by a decade and a half). But when, after a long break, they reappeared in classic American business clothes, the world thought their leader had gone mad (which, to be fair, happened later). Impressively, the current reissue of the offending album, 1985's Don't Stand Me Down, features a cover shot of the Dexys golfing, in the typical pastels and checks loved by those who can see only green in various shades.

From the same generation, Billy Childish, the author, musician, artist, name on Tracey Emin's tent etc, is now fronting the excellent Buff Medways, who resemble Chelsea pensioners in their attractive pre-camouflage army jackets. Childish has even cultivated a superb handlebar moustache to complete the look of a Great War recruiting poster come to life, only wielding a guitar.

The military look has long been favoured. Years ago, the NME had a regular feature involving a pic of the dopey-looking flavour of the month (often Richard Ashcroft) captioned: "God help us if there's a war". Yet the Sixties abounded with fashionable shops (such as I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet – yeah, right) selling ex-service togs to the new poperati. Sgt Pepper remains the most famous psychedelic platoon shot of all, but Jimi Hendrix was famously fond of his Guards jacket, and why not? He was an ex-paratrooper, after all.

Later, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and their manager, Bill Drummond, would argue over whose turn it was to use the camouflage netting in their stage set that week, unaware that only the abolition of national service had spared them from peeling spuds for the Empire rather than signing on while they honed their chops.

The other side got a look in, too. Keith Moon and the late Viv Stanshall, two of the least Aryan-looking men in history, were much given to Nazi-themed japery guaranteed to cause offence to their elders, who'd actually fought a war to preserve their right to prat about in SS uniforms. In a similar vein, the indestructible Lemmy, of Motörhead, is known for his collection of Second World War memorabilia.

Today, the militaristic tendency is kept alive by the likes of British Sea Power, who tend to prefer the ground-forces look (which they once described as "decommissioned uniforms" – that is, the entire stock of the now-defunct Kensington Market in the mid-Eighties) and Sweden's extraordinary (International) Noise Conspiracy, whose "Hoxton guerrilla" style sure looks good in photos. (Also, hailing from a famously neutral country, how else will they get a chance to play soldiers?) Where can they go next? Well, Public Enemy's well-drilled dance troupe, the S1Ws (literally – they even clutched toy guns), had actually graduated to naval uniforms by the time of Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black.

Let's not forget the Manic Street Preachers, who scandalised Top of the Pops when James Dean Bradfield wore a balaclava while promoting "Faster". If it had been Andy McNab up there, the same people would have called to offer their congratulations. The Manics, who initially took their cues from the epaulette-loving Clash – to the extent of painting slogans on their stage-wear – inspired the less aggressive fashion of feather boas among their fanatically loyal fans. Richey Edwards's disappearance – was it depression or asthma?

For bands who lack any natural visual appeal – or, worse, resemble their audience – there's always the option of anonymity. Since Devo pulled on their coveralls back in the Seventies, many have come straight from their plastering jobs straight to the gig, most famously the fabulous Slipknot, who even drink with straws (like most of their fans) when out in public to preserve their, er, mystique. It's thanks to such efforts, and those of the hack directors of a million slasher movies, that hockey masks are no longer associated with ice hockey. Clinic, from Liverpool, have long passed the point of finding surgical masks enough; the last time I saw them, they appeared to be wearing full Pearly King regalia – and surgical masks.

Some looks are just condemned never to catch on. No one ever moshed to Haircut 100 in an Arran sweater. No one but the band ever turned up to a Super Furry Animals show in a panda outfit. Where are the clog-wearers who once followed New Model Army today? Are they now holistic chiropodists?

One of the main shames of today's pop bands is their lack of ridiculousness. Where once the likes of the Bay City Rollers and Duran Duran effortlessly looked like prats, yet were instantly recognisable, 2002's sorry bunch rarely stoop to such heights. S Club 7 (or 6, or whatever they are this week) are considerably less colourful than a breakaway in the Tour de France, although they probably bear a similar number of advertising slogans, while the current flavour of the month, Blue, dress like, and may yet become, apprentice electricians.

Thankfully, the stage has largely been spared the football top seen so often on Englishmen abroad, probably because they rarely come in black. Brighton and Hove Albion football club's heroic rise through the divisions in shirts bearing the logo "Skint" (after their sponsor, the local record company) is about as close as it gets.

Special-forces outfits notwithstanding, the old suit-and-tie remains on top. Even taken to its illogical extent (for example, Kraftwerk airbrushed to within a millimetre of their robotic lives), it's easily mimicked and shows a certain respect for the audience.

And, of course, the Hives could get into Annabel's if they wanted to dance the night away with Bryan Ferry. As they would say, you cannot.