I maintain everyone should wear plugs at gigs, and not just to protect your hearing - shows sound better if you're wearing good, attenuated plugs. Avoid that foam shit; generic attenuated plugs really don't cost much and last forever. They cut out some of the problems of acoustics or poor mixing that you get in a lot of venues. So often I attend a gig and think it sounds amazing, only to briefly remove my plugs and be almost unable to hear the vocalist or one of the instruments, and afterwards somebody who didn't have plugs complains about how they found the whole sound muddy or whatever.
I wish I'd started routine use of plugs earlier, when I became a regular gig-goer, rather than when I was 23 and had already done damage to my ears. Fortunately I can only hear my tinnitus in very quiet environments, but my hearing in general isn't as flash as I would like it to be.
It's a little early as my gigs are in September but I felt I needed an upgrade from the foam ones I've used for the past 5 years.
Last LA show was LOUD. My ears weren't ringing but by the end of it I was covering my ears. Learned my lesson!
