Motion City Soundtrack are understandably feeling reflective. Not only is it the end of the year--the end of the decade--but the pop-punks from Minneapolis make their major-label debut next month with My Dinosaur Life after two albums on Epitaph. It makes sense that they'd want to look backward before moving forward.

And considering the obsessive-compulsiveness frontman Justin Pierre often exhibits in his lyrics, it also makes sense that Motion City Soundtrack would go all out: three shows on consecutive nights at Chicago's new Lincoln Hall, each devoted to one of the quintet's three prior albums. It's the kind of move canonical artists make in their twilight; just three months ago, Steely Dan played three of their albums at the regal Chicago Theatre. Happily crammed onto Lincoln Hall's small stage, Motion City Soundtrack showed their twilight is a long away off.

"It's been a while since we played some of these songs," Pierre said as the band took the stage Friday, a statement that sounded both nervous and excited. Over the course of the three nights, his face would occasionally betray the concentration he was putting in to just not screwing up, which he would punctuate after songs by laughing and saying stuff like, "I don't know if you can tell, but I was really thinking during that last one."

He needn't have worried, because the audience couldn't have been friendlier: fan-club members who sold out all three nights before tickets went on sale to the public. From the opening drumbeat of "Cambridge" on Friday night to final notes of "Throwdown" on Sunday, the crowd greeted virtually every song as if it were their favorite.

Friday night's show went the longest, with Motion City Soundtrack playing 10 songs after I Am the Movie's 14.