A Short Vivid Biography

Greger Rönnqvist, Göran Landgren and Jörgen Rönnqvist launched Vivid under the name of "Fire" at the end of 1982. They later changed the name to "Black Fire" and in 1984 they finally changed it to "Vivid". In the beginning, they didn’t have a bass player, so in April 1985 they asked a friend to join them. His name was Tryggve Knutsson and he became the third guitarist in Vivid, and the bass playing was split up between him and Göran. Greger, Göran and Tryggve went to the same school in Strömsund, Sweden so it came quite naturally that they finally got together in the band.

They still didn’t have a keyboard player though. Greger got to know a guy named Jon Henric Andersson when they were working at the same place for a short period of time. Greger asked Jon Henric if he wanted to join the band, and after some thinking he became the keyboard player in January 1986.

Throughout the years the members have changed. Leif Johansson (he later changed his name to Leif Thorpemo) became the bass player at the beginning of 1987. The band then consisted of Greger, Jörgen, Tryggve, Jon-Henric and Leif.

In 1988 it all seemed to go the right way for Vivid. They participated in "LT Rocken", a music contest for amateurs. They qualified for the final, but didn’t make it there. Still, they got a reputation as a band of some very young and promising musicians.

The turning point came when Vivid received two offers from two English record companies almost simultaneously. After quite a few discussions, it became clear that all of the band members wasn’t able to put in the time, work and money to go the whole way with Vivid, so the band eventually split up at the beginning of 1989. Ironically this came when they were on the verge to a breakthrough.

The years passed by and Greger, Göran, Jörgen, Tryggve, Jon Henric and Leif were talking once in a while about getting the band together again. Partly because it was fun, but also to record the album they never did in the 80’s. One evening in 1998, Greger, Jörgen, Tryggve and Jon Henric met over a beer at Gröna Lund, Stockholm, Sweden. This time they talked seriously about getting the band together again in the summer of 1999, 10 years after the split-up, to record their best songs from 1982-1989. They talked to the other members and they were all very thrilled about the idea.

So when the summer of 1999 came they all got together at Lövbergas bygdegård. At the first jam they realised that the magic was still there. They picked out 15 songs out of the 60 songs they wrote through the years 1982-1989, rehearsed and recorded them during two hot weeks in the magic summer of 1999. The album title "Time of Revelations" was chosen to reflect on the reunion as well as the upcoming new Millennium. The album received very good reviews throughout the world.

Now the band will do a reunion gig at the festival Dundermarknaden in Strömsund, Sweden, july 10, 2003. A female vocalist (Ylfva Glantz) have been added to the line up. Jon Henric has left the band permanently/temporary (only time will tell) to join another great local metal act called Keeper.