The dream lives on, even amid the chaos

Bleed the Dream was due for a break. The L.A. quartet, which is soldiering on while its original drummer, Scott Gottlieb, undergoes treatment for leukemia, got a taste of performing on the main stage midway through the Taste of Chaos tour.

They had endured typical mishaps while playing the acoustic stage (where they will perform tonight in Long Beach): van breakdowns, snowstorms and even security guards not recognizing that vocalist Brandon Thomas was in the band.

Then, on March 3 in Montreal, in the middle of the song “Broken Wings,” the power went out.

“We just ran up to the front of the stage,” guitarist Dave Aguilera said. “We held our guitars up in the air and kept playing ‘em. And everyone kept singing. It was crazy, being in a place we’d never been before, and kids are singing our songs at the top of their lungs.”

That had to encourage tour producer Kevin Lyman, whose Warcon Records will release Bleed the Dream’s debut album April 26.

As for Gottlieb, who was stricken while on tour in spring 2004, he is in Los Angeles awaiting a bone marrow transplant. But not even nausea and severe headaches kept him from laying down his tracks for the album, or from participating in a video shoot for “Legends Die.”

“He had chemo on a Tuesday, was in the hospital till Friday,” Aguilera says. “[He] got out of the hospital Friday night around 10 o’clock, drove to the video shoot on Saturday, did the video and then went back and got more chemo on Monday.

“That’s punk rock.”

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-- Annie Zaleski