Professional darts players’ walk-ons are a massive part of the carnival atmosphere that brings energy, colour and utter sensory overload to your trip to the arrows. Nowadays, it’s no longer enough to simply watch elite tungsten slingers smashing in trebles for a living. It’s theatre now. Pure spectacle. Flashing lights, smoke machines, pyrotechnics and middle-aged blokes in a superhero costume screaming like they’ve just witnessed the Second Coming in a leisure centre sponsored by Betfred.
And when those stars of the oche stride onto the stage, they need a soundtrack. Something loud. Something memorable. Something that gets a crowd bouncing harder than a washing machine with a brick inside it. Some players absolutely nail it. Others choose songs so catastrophically dreadful they could sedate an angry Rottweiler.
So, I’ve decided to pick my four favourites and my four absolute stinkers. These aren’t ranked in any particular order – just tunes I think genuinely work, and others that deserve investigating by music industry organisations.
ANDREW GILDING – Gold by Spandau Ballet
Nicknamed Goldfinger, the link here isn’t exactly hidden beneath layers of intellectual complexity. Find a song with the word “gold” in it, make sure it isn’t completely crap and job’s a good ‘un. Still, you can’t argue with the result. It works brilliantly.
The thing about Andrew Gilding is I genuinely don’t think he understands how popular he is. He innocently looks like a bloke who’s accidentally wandered onto a televised darts stage while looking for a model train shop. Meanwhile, thousands adore him like some glorious bald uncle who fixes your boiler while smoking roll-ups in the rain.
And the song itself? Outstanding. Pure 1980s gold. Back when music required actual instruments, talent and a producer who wasn’t sat in a bedroom pressing buttons while sounding like a microwave having a panic attack. Nowadays half the charts sound like Russ Bray being choked and shouting through a broken megaphone.
NATHAN ASPINALL – Mr Brightside by The Killers
It still amazes me nobody picked this before Nathan. It’s impossible not to sing along to. Literally impossible. Scientists should study it. If they played Mr Brightside at a funeral, there’d still be one pissed bloke near the coffin screaming the lyrics with a tie around his forehead.
Every generation knows it too. Teenagers love it. Students love it. Blokes in Stone Island jackets love it. Women clutching warm Pinot Grigio at weddings love it. I once saw a pensioner with a mobility scooter and oxygen tank absolutely belt this out during a bizarre intermission at a nursing home bingo night. The DJ either fancied causing chaos or forgot his Songs of Praise CD. Either way, the place erupted like Glastonbury with arthritis.
It’s impossible to fail with this tune. The Killers produced an anthem so universally loved it could probably unite North and South Korea in four and a half minutes.
MARIO VANDENBOGAERDE – The One & Only by Chesney Hawkes
For years, this would genuinely have been my own walk-on choice had I ever managed to average above 60 without looking like I was throwing with oven gloves on.
Another huge hit. Another instantly recognisable tune. The second Chesney Hawkes starts singing this banger, every person in the venue knows exactly what’s coming. It’s gloriously cheesy without tipping into full wedding disco embarrassment.
Whether Mario picked it himself or one of his mates suggested it after nine pints of Stella and a YouTube search, fair play. Nobody on Earth expected Chesney Hawkes to crack the notoriously unforgiving Belgian music scene. Then again, after hearing some of the stuff Dimitri Van den Bergh listens to on his iPad, the standard wasn’t exactly Abbey Road Studios.
MICHAEL VAN GERWEN – Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes
Truthfully, I’m not even a huge fan of the song itself. But when those green lights start flashing, the strobes kick in and the crowd begins chanting Michael van Gerwen’s name like some terrifying Dutch warlord entering battle, it genuinely gives you goosebumps.
It feels enormous. Like something catastrophic is about to happen to whoever’s stood backstage clutching three darts and regretting all their life choices.
The funniest part is that the whole thing happened by accident. Years ago at Ally Pally during the Worlds, the song was actually meant for Kim Huybrechts. Someone in the DJ booth completely ballsed it up, hit the wrong button and accidentally gave it to MVG instead. The crowd instantly started singing along and suddenly the PDC had inadvertently created one of the greatest walk-ons in darts history. Poor Kim basically got told: “Sorry mate, we’ve f**ked up royally and handed your entrance music to the future Terminator of darts. You’ll have to pick something else.”
To be fair, he recovered reasonably well with Rock You Like A Hurricane. Which, coincidentally, follows the exact same creative process as Gilding’s. Find word in nickname. Locate song. Job’s a good’un.
Now onto the four that make me want to remove my own ears with a potato peeler.
CHRIS DOBEY – Hey Jude by The Beatles
How, from the entire Beatles catalogue, has this ended up being the selection? This is Liverpool’s greatest musical export. One of the most iconic bands in human history. And somehow we land on the musical equivalent of waiting at the dentist trying to do a completed Suduko.
To be fair, I believe this was suggested by Euro Tour MC Swiss Phil. Who isn’t Swiss. But is in fact named Phil. Which feels misleading from the outset. The bizarre thing is when Dobey walked out in Newcastle on Premier League duty to Local Hero – the same song used by his beloved football team – the atmosphere was electric. The roof nearly came off. Grown men were crying into pints. Women were ascending spiritually. It was magnificent.
Then somehow we reverted back to Hey Jude, which has all the adrenaline of watching a printer reboot. And before angry Beatles fans come after me with pitchforks and stolen wheel trims, yes, they made brilliant music. But this song drags on longer than a Ryanair delay announcement delivered by someone chewing gravel.
MIKE DE DECKER – Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
In fairness, this tune actually suits Mike De Decker perfectly. Calm. Relaxed. Pleasant enough. But absolutely not what you want before two blokes attempt to psychologically destroy each other with sharpened tungsten on live television.
I’ll be honest – I cannot stand Bob Marley. I know highly controversial, somewhere between criticising Taylor Swift and admitting you don’t like dogs. But I find most of it about as exciting as standing in a German airport customs queue. This walk-on has all the intensity of a bloke softly watering his garden in Crocs. Quite frankly, anything by one of those wank American artists with the prefix ‘Lil’ before their name is preferable.
It does not get a crowd pumped up. It actively lowers human pulse rates. If Darth Vader needed entrance music after a particularly difficult divorce settlement, this would probably be it. The intergalactic baddie went with a nice little Chopin piece for his grand entrances. That would have been more uplifting than Bob fuckin Marley.
RYAN JOYCE – Tetris by Doctor Spin
What is it with Geordies and horrific walk-on music? Thankfully Callan Rydz rescued some dignity with Sam Fender’s banging tune, Hypersonic Missiles because this is absolutely criminal.
Yes, Ryan Joyce has a Tetris-themed shirt. Yes, the connection makes sense. But so would me walking out to the Match of the Day theme if I wore a football top. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The song itself sounds like a haunted Nokia ringtone being played through a broken microwave. It has the musical depth of a house alarm.
Surely there comes a point where someone close to Ryan gently sits him down and says: “Mate… enough now.” Maybe a shirt redesign could trigger a full musical rethink. One can only hope.
DIRK VAN DUIJVENBODE – Just Like You by Radical Redemption
This isn’t music. It’s industrial punishment. It sounds like someone trapped inside a cement mixer. There are no actual real lyrics, no melody and no discernible structure beyond “LOUD NOISES FOR ANGRY PEOPLE.”
Admittedly, it suits Dirk perfectly. The man stomps to the stage like an escaped nightclub bouncer possessed by Red Bull and unresolved trauma. The crowd absolutely loves it. I, however, would rather listen to a smoke alarm with low batteries for six consecutive hours.
If Dirk ever invited me to a rave, I’d genuinely fake my own death to avoid attending. And no amount of illegal narcotics could convince me otherwise. You’d need horse tranquilliser and a full NHS support team just to survive the warm-up DJ.
Those are my picks anyway. Some are iconic. Some are dreadful. Some should be preserved for future generations. Others should be fired directly into the sea.
Now let’s hear yours.
