Use party earplugs, even the low grade ~20 bucks version is night-and-day.

Some concerts/parties/clubs are definitely purposely too loud. Yes, many people going are already hearing-compromised.

Soundsystem parties are designed to have so much base it vibrates your body.

If you go there without earplugs someone will offer you napkins as otherwise you’ll get tinnitus.

I've had this exact problem attending most concerts (only classical music seems mostly fine). The music sounds very distorted (like a damaged speaker or an audio recording with heavy clipping) and after a while it gets physically painful to listen. Movies are sometimes uncomfortable, but the volume level is less constant which helps a lot. I've asked around and nobody seems to share this experience. I didn't use to go to live events often and it actually took me years to realize that my hearing's at fault.

A similar data point: I carry earplugs everywhere, and usually wear them when I'm at the movie theater (which is kind of rare) and at parties where there's loud music or talking; I do this because sooner or later I notice my ears hurting from the noise. The earplugs I have are flesh-colored ("Hearos"), and I don't think most people notice them unless I point them out.

I'm not sure whether I'm an outlier in terms of hearing sensitivity, or if it's just that I somehow wired myself to interpret certain stimuli as pain, or what. I also find bright sunlight and spicy food painful, and when I've gotten massages, usually I prefer a much lighter touch than what appears to be normal. I guess smell is the remaining sense; I guess I have evidence that (some) smells bother me more than they bother others.

Same. I've had this happen to me twice. Once I was sitting in the back and farthest away from the sound source, but it was still so bad I had to leave. Now I don't go to any concerts without a pair of ear plugs.

Concerts are loud for a reason. It needs to drone out talking. This is why evening book/poetry readings in bars are universally horrible.

Depending on the particular band it's possible that they use distortion as part of their sound..