Twin Fin at Soda Bar

It sounds like a summer afternoon at Tourmaline going slightly sideways — surf-leaning guitar, reverb on everything, songs about almost-relationships and bad timing. They write San Diego the way San Diego actually feels when the tide is out and the day has turned a little melancholy. And they keep coming back to Soda Bar on a weeknight because Soda Bar still books locals midweek with the same care it gives touring acts on a Saturday, which is rarer than it ought to be. Three hundred capacity on El Cajon Boulevard. The room is the band's friends, plus the regulars who turn up for whatever is booked, plus the handful of people who heard the demo and came to find out whether the live show held up. It holds up. Bring the friend who taught you to surf, or the one who never learned and always meant to.