News that Noel Gallagher has been assaulted by a fan during a gig in Toronto has got us debating the vexed issue of the stage invasion.

Essentially, there are two kinds. There's the euphoric melee, which evolves naturally as a result of an explosive performance. Then there's the ugly kind, which ends with a band member actually getting hurt, thus disrupting the gig for everyone. Not cool.

Noel Gallagher's trials in Toronto manifestly belong to the latter category, as you can see by fast-forwarding to 1.30:

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Still, random acts of onstage violence can be amusing. It just depends who they're directed against.

For example, is there anything more chortlesome than watching Robbie Williams get shoved in the back while in full-on, preening showman mode (0.18)? No? OK, how about watching the same incident over and over again in pitiless slow motion while the "fat dancer" weeps over his misfortune (4.05)?

Evidently, only the truly cool can survive an onstage attack with their dignity intact. Take Keith Richards, whose response to a stage invader – namely leathering the luckless interloper square in the face with his Telecaster - was both swift and brutal. "When a cat gets on your turf, you gotta chop him down," explained the Rolling Stones axeman afterwards.

Even normally mild-mannered musicians can see red if their domain is violated. When an over-zealous fan attempted to kiss Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, the alt-country troubadour lamped him without a second's hesitation (1.12).

Band-on-fan violence becomes a little more problematic if there's a marked disparity between the two parties. Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, for example, hardly covered himself in glory when he dived wild-eyed into a rioting audience made up primarily of teenage girls (1.45).

It's especially ugly if the artist in question appears to relish the prospect of a dust-up, as with Ian Brown in San Franciso.

Sometimes artists don't even have to be on stage to be on the receiving end of fisticuffs – as famously beefy Misfits frontman Glenn Danzig discovered to his cost when he got decked by an irate bouncer backstage at a US gig (0.17).

Inevitably, narcotics are often to blame. Everyone remembers the moment when Elastica's set at Glastonbury '95 was interrupted by a streaker (6.25). Years later, the culprit Antony Genn – now fronting The Hours – explained his actions. “What made me end up onstage with Elastica? Well, taking an astronomical sum of drugs that would kill most elephants."

Drugs were almost certainly involved, albeit this time on the part of the artist rather than the stage-invaders, when Pete Doherty was swamped by fans during his solo gig at London's Royal Albert Hall, July 12, 2008 (0.45).

For sheer, joyous, uninhibited anarchy, however, nothing can top the mad pagan outbreak of pogoing and thrusting that greeted Iggy & The Stooges' set at Glastonbury 2007. Here they are discussing it on TV the following year.