Blue Medusa Make European Live Debut Alongside Kreator and Heaven Shall Burn in Berlin

Alissa White-Gluz has taken Blue Medusa from new project to live band. The former Arch Enemy vocalist made her first appearance with the five-piece at a surprise show in Berlin, sharing an unannounced bill with Kreator and Heaven Shall Burn.

Blue Medusa made their live debut at Huxleys Neue Welt on 4 September as part of the Corrupted Blood Club Show. The event had sold out months earlier without its line-up being revealed, leaving the identity of its three main acts secret until the night itself.

What followed was a considerably bigger bill than the club-show framing suggested.

Blue Medusa opened their live account with a four-song set before Heaven Shall Burn and Kreator also appeared as secret headliners.

Four songs and a first look at Blue Medusa live

White-Gluz launched Blue Medusa in March, several months after ending her eleven-year run with Arch Enemy in November 2025.

The Berlin show offered the first indication of what the project looks like beyond its recorded material.

Alongside White-Gluz, the line-up consists of guitarists Alyssa Day and Dani Sophia, bassist Alicia Vigil and drummer Delaney Jaster. The band played three Blue Medusa originals, “Flying Monkey”, “Crocodile” and debut single “Checkmate”, before including “The Wolf You Feed”, White-Gluz’s 2023 collaboration with Nita Strauss.

The timing was deliberate. “Crocodile” had been released only hours before the show, meaning the band’s second single effectively arrived on the same day as their live debut.

Four songs are still a small window into what Blue Medusa intend to become, but Berlin moved the project beyond being framed solely around White-Gluz’s departure from Arch Enemy.

There is now an actual band on stage.

A secret bill with considerably bigger names

Blue Medusa weren’t the only surprise.

German metal heavyweights Heaven Shall Burn and Kreator both performed during the evening, turning an event with no publicly announced line-up into a bill containing three internationally established names or, in Blue Medusa’s case, musicians with substantial history behind them.

The concept clearly travelled beyond Huxleys too.

The entire event was streamed on Twitch and, according to Corrupted Blood, attracted 295,000 unique viewers, with Germany, France and the UK providing the largest audiences.

For a record label’s club event, that reach is significant.

It also provides some context for what Corrupted Blood announced next.

From club show to a 10,000-capacity festival

During the evening, Corrupted Blood Records revealed plans for Corrupted Blood Open Air, a new festival scheduled for summer 2027.

The proposed capacity is 10,000.

Details around the line-up, location and exact date remain limited, so there is still a considerable gap between announcing the concept and establishing a new festival at that scale.

Still, the ambition is clear.

Corrupted Blood is positioning itself as more than a label releasing records and merchandise. Moving from an intentionally secretive club show at Huxleys towards an outdoor event for thousands of people puts the organisation directly into Germany’s live infrastructure.

The Berlin show functioned almost as a demonstration of that intent.

A sold-out room, three surprise acts and an online audience far larger than the physical venue gave Corrupted Blood a substantial platform from which to announce the next step.

A new phase for White-Gluz

For White-Gluz, the night was significant for a different reason.

Since leaving Arch Enemy, she has moved quickly rather than disappearing between projects. Alongside Blue Medusa and her solo work, she has joined DragonForce as co-lead vocalist.

Blue Medusa, however, increasingly looks like the project where a new band identity can develop.

That distinction matters.

The first announcements inevitably centred on White-Gluz because of her history with The Agonist and Arch Enemy. The musicians around her now have the harder task of turning Blue Medusa into something that can stand independently from that biography.

Berlin was the first real opportunity to do so.

There are only a handful of songs to judge them by and four live tracks hardly establish what the band will eventually become.

But Blue Medusa are no longer simply Alissa White-Gluz’s next project on paper.

As of Berlin, they are a live band.