The predator of the North was on the prowl through Sweden, and had this night come all the way to the southernmost end of the land to play for Scanian and Danish fans alike.

“Dear brothers and sisters, we’ve travelled far to get all the way down here goddamnit!”
- Pär Hulkoff (vocals/guitar)

The stage at KB was dressed for war. The mighty logo adorned the back wall, the camouflage coloured drums had been transformed into machine guns, and a tank stood parked on either side of them. What could be more Raubtier than that?
Starting the show with Björnes Magasin of course!
Yes, the dainty child TV-show theme marked a light-hearted and humorous introduction to the total carnage of war that was about to take place. Det Finns Bara Krig came in quick succession, and we could see immediately that we here had a well-greased war machine ready for the kill!
Also the audience, which by now was more or less filling KB up, accelerated into action at once and was screaming and shouting along to the lyrics of the camouflage clad band.
Yes, gone was the fake body armour that Hulkoff had worn the last time we saw them, and somehow this dirty, worn military jacket just fit the bill so much better than that stylized plastic toy. It was real, it was dirty, it was wilderness – it was Raubtier!

Raubtier had just recently released their fourth album, Pansargryning, an album with more than a few hits to its name if you ask me. This album was of course proudly paraded through the set where no less than seven of its twelve songs were played, all choice cuts of course even though I personally missed Innan Löven Faller from this particular album; overall my biggest regret was that Rebeller wasn’t played among the fine but not altogether surprising choices from the earlier three albums.
With a setlist scribed with Vodka in a pool of napalm and a band marching relentlessly on with the panzer division at their back, what could go wrong?
Well, nothing really, or so it would appear. Hulkoff and Jonas Kjellgren were acing the performance with a lot of posing and a heavy dose of humour, while Mattias ‘Buffeln’ Lind who took a more anonymous approach behind the drums kept everything tight and running throughout the night – he was also the one to reintroduce the band as they were heading on for the encore, calling themselves the Heroes of Haparanda.

“Scream like idiots, it’s allowed here!”
- Hulkoff (vocals/guitar)

Hulkoff had a lot to say this evening, although mostly it came down to audience praises or humorous interludes between songs, like the time he announced that there was only one band and only one audience that mattered and that we were going to do a Skansen sing along, Haparanda style; or the time he mentioned that a Northern living reviewer had put Pansargryning down, complaining that Raubtier was too hard (not surprisingly this generated a lot of cheers in the metal crowd).
However, Hulkoff wasn’t the only one putting his voice on the front; Kjellgren got to take us through the chorus of Bränder and J. Bergman, vocalist and guitarist of the support band Man.Machine.Industry helped out with screams during Achtung Panzer.
Looking away from the many chorus sing along moments that the audience got to do, there was also a constant chanting of the word Raubtier, and the intensity of this almost got Hulkoff to choke up a bit with pride as he answered; “I feel the same as you”.

The predators’ last prowl of Scania, two years ago in Helsingborg, had actually left me with a feeling that they were getting tired, that the dog had lost its bite, but I’m happy to report that the devastation of KB proved me wrong on this without the shadow of a doubt!
Whatever they have done to find back to the raw energy of the wild, we welcome it with open arms – a great new album and a kick-ass show to cement the road for panzer domination was what was presented to us, and we couldn’t get enough.

Setlist:

Björnes Magasin (Anders Henriksson song)
Det Finns Bara Krig
Från Min Kalla Döda Hand
Skjut, Gräv, Tig
Dieseldöden
Polarvargen
Vittring
Änglar
Dieselrök
Jaga Hårt
Lebensgefahr
Sveriges Elit
Qaqortoq
Achtung Panzer
Dobermann
Bränder
Besten I Mig
Världsherravälde
Pansarmarsch
Kamphund
Låt Napalmen Regna
The Terminator Theme (Brad Fiedel song)