It’s 3.45pm on a Sunday in Helsinki’s Kaivopuisto park and I’m warming-up near a man dressed as the city’s cathedral. A headdress of neoclassical domes sets the outfit off, but it’s the Senate Square cathedral steps that have won him the best outfit award at the inaugural Darude Sandstorm Run. For Daniel Erickson, who has travelled from New York especially, it’s well-deserved.
The Darude Sandstorm Run is a suitably silly marker of 25 years of both Finnish DJ Darude’s career and the release of the music video for Sandstorm. First released in Finland in 1999, the track is a trance earworm notable for its du-du-du-du-du riff, as if being emitted from some futuristic pan pipes. It went global the following year, along with a semi-iconic music video shot in Helsinki, viewed 306m times on YouTube. I, Erickson and 825 others are now gearing up to run the route documented in its cops-and-robbers storyline.
Sandstorm remains a staple of sporting events, is loved by sports stars – swimmer Michael Phelps used to listen to it before winning Olympic gold medals, citing the energy it gave him – and has found a constantly evolving place in internet culture, making it a platinum-seller in the UK and the US. Whether somebody is playing it on a potato or it’s being used as the sound for a sandstorm alarm in the Gobi Desert, it’s one of Finland’s most recognisable pop culture exports.
The track has taken Darude, real name Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen, around the world, playing live in over 80 countries including recent stops in Japan and Guyana. Speaking from Chicago a week prior to the run, he looks back fondly at the support Sandstorm received in the UK from DJs Pete Tong and Judge Jules. It then went to No 3 in the charts.
But, he says, “my last five or 10 years of relevancy I definitely owe to gaming and the meme culture that revolves around that.” The track is particularly popular with players of online multiplayer battle arena game League of Legends; “Darude – Sandstorm” is now a stock response to anyone requesting a track ID on gaming streams.
Beyond the track’s infernal catchiness, it’s not clear why Sandstorm took off as a soundtrack of choice among Call of Duty streamers in the late 00s, but its use snowballed as internet culture developed and the US EDM boom hit. YouTube putting a Darude button on its player for April Fools’ Day in 2015, which added a second of Sandstorm to any video on its site, cemented its meme legacy. I get the sense Darude is conflicted by his song’s strange legacy: “My crowd has gotten younger, which is obviously key to my ongoing career,” he says pragmatically. “But also, I’ve met people in their 40s or 50s at my shows with their 18-year-old kids. It’s really cool when someone young comes over and says: ‘I was five or six when my mom and dad played your stuff in the car. Now I’m here.’”
Back in Helsinki, people from 17 countries have amassed for our 6.7km run. We are encouraged to take pictures matching images from a free locations booklet along the way and Darude has curated a special playlist for the event on Spotify (spoiler: it’s Sandstorm on repeat). Some runners are clad in gilets and carrying silver briefcases in honour of the video.
There is a brief moment 30 seconds after the start where I think I could possibly win, but then the downhill past the Kaivopuisto fence makes way for the slightest of climbs and my pace drops to a painful crawl across the city’s cobbled streets. I try to picture a young Darude along the way, clad in those wraparound glasses, doing that crouched pose.
“I had very little to do with the music video, but it was an awesome experience,” Darude tells me, adding that director Juuso Syrjä would go on to direct various Nordic noir shows, including Netflix’s Border Town. “There were so many cool people that pulled together for the video and the follow-up ones, and so many of us had actual careers come out of it.”
He has the air of a man who’d quite like to be known for more than one hit, but who has also made his peace with the fact that he probably won’t be. “Sandstorm has life of its own, and it’s bigger than me,” he says. “But if people know Sandstorm, I just hope they come and see me live somewhere. I can show them what I do. I’m there partying with them – that’s when I’m at my happiest.”
Back at the park I arrive very much not in first place at a rapturous finish line, soundtracked by Darude himself on the decks, selflessly lifting, dropping and remixing the track for an entire hour so that everyone can experience their own unique piece of Sandstorm history. A queue forms for merch signing and one by one Darude politely signs everything given to him. “Let’s have a break from the dududus,” he says to the crowd, thanking them for coming before playing some music that isn’t Sandstorm.
• Darude plays a 25th anniversary concert at Kattilahalli, Helsinki, 6 September
