August 13, 2013

The Outside Lands Festival: All Access

Some of our favorite moments from San Francisco’s gigantic, foggy party.


Every August, 60,000 spectators gather in Golden Gate Park for three days of music, comedy, food, and revelry under San Francisco’s famous marine layer. This year, headliners included Paul McCartney and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, though Outside Lands is as much about showcasing up-and-coming bands—and their colorful fans, of course—as it is about the stars.

From the early afternoon mosh pit during Wavves’s set to the impromptu dance parties that sprung up between acts, here’s a look at some of our favorite festival moments from Outside Lands.

Outside Lands love

If you’re going to San Francisco… Maggie Caldwell
 

Gabe Simon, Kopecky Family Band Maggie Severns
 

Outside Lands stilts

Joy on stilts. Maggie Caldwell
 

Fans await the Head and the Heart. Maggie Caldwell
 

Ruth Radelet, Chromatics Maggie Severns
 

Jonathan Russell of the Head and the Heart at the Sutro Stage. Maggie Caldwell
 

Comedian Maria Bamford on the Barbary Stage. Maggie Caldwell
 

Foals Maggie Severns
 

Magician

A performer practices David Bowie’s Labyrinth moves. Maggie Caldwell
 

Excuse me for partying. Maggie Caldwell
 

Willie Nelson Maggie Severns
 

San Francisco dancers

Just dance! Maggie Caldwell
 

In the festival kitchens. Maggie Caldwell
 
Hungry

Spicy Pie hits the spot. Maggie Caldwell
 
Outside Lands

Walking and chowing by the windmills. Maggie Caldwell
 

Cat-napping near the Panhandle Stage. Maggie Caldwell
 

Nathan Williams, Wavves Maggie Severns
 

Big Wavves surfing. Maggie Caldwell
 

Thao Nguyen of Thao And The Get Down Stay Down. Maggie Caldwell
 

On the prowl… Maggie Caldwell
 

Karen Oh of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Maggie Caldwell

Sadly, photographs don’t do dance moves justice. Here are a couple concertgoers in motion:

 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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