Here's how to get free tickets to watch Slaves this Thursday

The first act in line for our latest series of free 48HoursTo gigs, in sponsored_longform with Lynx, is loud mouthed punk duo; Slaves, who play the Zanzibar Club in Liverpool this Thursday. Get tickets here but be quick.                                             

ShortList’s editorial director and magazine veteran Phil Hilton on anger you can believe in

The year was 1980-ish and I was watching punk-rockers The Damned, and this bloke next to me threw up near the singer’s feet. We were all pressed up against the stage and the puke was about a foot from my face. Couldn’t move, I was crushed, inches from his vomit. I remember thinking, “Life will not be this good forever.”

However, a thousand years later at Latitude 2014, I see Slaves for the first time as I’m making my way to the jerk-chicken stand. I’m hearing a fuzzed guitar and some shout-singing, and the singer is playing drums standing up like he has too much energy to sit down. There’s only two of them, and hang on… I stop. F*ck the jerk chicken.

So initially I stopped because they reminded me of the days when people made short, exciting songs and I wore black jeans my mum had taken in for me, and every gig was the most intense thing in my crappy teen existence.

But I was wrong. I stopped for the wrong reason. Slaves aren’t punk-rock battle-recreationists, they’re made of now. They’re angry but not that fake, blank, art-school anger that many Seventies punks tried on. Theirs is the anger of the call-centre generation, who can’t buy houses and fiddle with social media, despite themselves. The thrill of punk but not punk.

I’ve seen bands do their hair and pull on the narrow, black jeans of rock. But none of them, not one, have made me feel like I have puke near my face. Thank you, Slaves.

Gig location revealed 18 October at ShortList.com/48hours