With the end of the Re-Invention Tour approaching the number of articles about the technical aspects of the Tour production is getting bigger day by day.

Website Motu.com – home of the celebrated Motu computer interface, features another interesting interview to Michael McKnight which gives a detailed description of the way he works with music and his Mac computers in the show. Michael has programmed every major Madonna tour using a MOTU system driven by Digital Performer. Motu recently caught up with him during the Re-Invention tour, in an interview directly beneath the stage, to get the latest details about his setup – here’s a bit of what he says:

“Madonna will sometimes forget that whole show is on a strict timecode time line. She’ll get excited and start talking to the crowd, and she won’t come in singing when we’re all expecting. When that happens, I instantly switch to my B system, get the A system back on track, and then switch back to the A system, while on my headset telling the video and lighting guys, “Hey guys, time code is jumping back four bars, get ready!” When Madonna decides to add four bars to the intro, then we add four bars to the intro. That’s just the way it has to be with a superstar. And this system gives me the flexibility to do these things on the fly, while at the same time feeding time code to the entire rest of the show.”

But probably the most interesting thing is a picture of a work in progress setlist that discloses some details about a few changes that have been rumored so far. Our friends at french website madonnaelectronica noticed that the setlist features “Stupid” in the place were “Material Girl” is now played. If you have a closer look, you’all also find another track, written by hand and then cancelled. It is “Dress You Up“, that was in the setlist right before Material Girl and after I’m So Stupid was put aside.

As you can see, the overall scheme of the show is pretty much the same, and no big changes have been made in the last weeks – aside the I’m So Stupid / Dress You Up / Material Girl change. We can tell you that this latest change was so unexpected that caused quite a stir in the Tour crew and production team, with fears that there was not enough time left to make a proper background video projection to match the new song.

When MadonnaTribe announced on May 23 that Material Girl was in the setlist instead of Dress you up, we weren’t sure if it would have fit well in the show, but Madonna’s intuition was right. After seeing the show live – where the song is so powerful and works so good – it’s easy to say it’s definitely one of the tour’s highlights.

Thanks to our friend at madonnaelectronica
Check the full interview at Motu.com