“Seeing your name in the same area as that guy’s name...if you were to show that to your 12-year-old self, when he was first discovering this music, he’d have been like ‘no chance’.”

That’s how Ardrossan DJ Nathan Devlin described playing at Hardstyle Superheroes in Glasgow, alongside a legend of the genre - Brennan Heart.

Nathan opened the event at the city’s O2 Academy on September 9 before the Dutch DJ came on to headline later in the evening.

Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre most popular in the Netherlands, where it emerged.

It is typically written at 140 beats per minute (BPM) and can be an acquired taste - though Nathan explained how this particular genre can make for a great night for any DJ.

He commented: “As much as I love other genres, there’s something about those nights which is just different.

“When you get the big named chart artists that will play the SECC and places like that, it’s just not the same vibe.

“The people that go to these kind of nights, because it’s such a niche thing, they only go because they really want to go, not just for a quick bit of Instagram content.”

Nathan also told of how he first came to fall in love with Hardstyle around 14 years ago, and what inspired him to begin pursuing his passion.

He said: “On the first ever hardstyle album I purchased in 2008, the first track was a Brennan Heart track.

“I still remember it like it was yesterday. This first track came on and I just thought ‘whoa, I’m for some of this’.

“It’s phenomenal. When you first get into this kind of music at a young age it’s the kind of thing you dream about being able to associate yourself with.

“There’s so many new guys that you idolise, but the kind of old guard like Brennan Heart, these are the guys that even the big names of today are still looking up to.”

While sharing the bill with one of his heroes at the Glasgow event was a surreal moment, Nathan has plenty of experience in the DJing world.

It all began in Saltcoats around seven years ago, around the time of his 18th birthday.

Nathan had his first gig right on his doorstep, playing in the now-closed ‘The Flask’, supporting Ultrabeat who were playing there that night.

He is happy to play numerous genres of music, and still plays the occasional function, as well as DJing at nightclubs and travlling to Ibiza for shows on the Balearic party island.

Nathan is also a resident DJ at the I Am A Raver events, where he plays alongside plenty of nostalgic names such as DJ Bad Boy, Gary McF and DJ Cammy.

He has also guest mixed on GBX’s popular Clyde 1 radio show, and featured in Scotland’s ‘first rave after lockdown’ which began at a minute past midnight on the day of the rule changes.

And the September 9 gig wasn’t his first Hardstyle Superheroes event either – nor his only experience playing in some of Scotland’s biggest events in the genre.

Since 2019, he has played at the popular Coloursfest event in Glasgow, which features a plethora of the leading names in big room, trance and hard dance.

It means the name Nathan Devlin has featured on the same bills as artists such as Angerfist, Ben Nicky and Scooter.

Despite still enjoying playing other genres for a more mixed audience, Nathan says: “My main passion is the harder stuff.

“The idea is building a brand of the artist with the harder stuff, getting stuff to labels, that kind of path of progression and hopefully grow into a bigger name.”

Nathan’s next shows are this Saturday, September 24, at the latest I Am A Raver event at the Classic Grand, on Jamaica Street in Glasgow, and on Friday, September 30, at the Hard Dance Alliance event at Slay in the city’s Glassford Street.

Nathan’s original music can be found at: soundcloud.com/nathan-devlin-1