Radiohead playing a free show for Wall Street protestors today? Not so fast

In case you were not aware, downtown New York has been a little bit hectic for the past two weeks, with protesters swarming the streets of the Financial District to shout against the general greed of the American corporate establishment.

As Jon Stewart noted last night on The Daily Show, it sometimes resembles Bonnaroo, and apparently the organizers of the protest took that to heart, because they announced that Radiohead would be playing a free show for the participants at 4pm this afternoon.

When those rumors first surfaced, it seemed like a bold and potentially dangerous proposition, especially considering that a reported 500,000 people attempted to get tickets for the band’s pair of shows at Roseland Ballroom (which only holds 3,200). As it turns out, the doubts were justified: The band’s publicist confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that they will not in fact be making an appearance downtown this afternoon.

Though they aren’t playing a free show for people fed up with corporate greed, Radiohead have managed to take over New York in the past seven days. They played SNL over the weekend, were the centerpiece of a special episode of The Colbert Report, and blew people away with the above-mentioned shows at Roselan — not too shabby for a week’s trip.

Read more on EW.com:

Radiohead on ‘The Colbert Report’: Way better than Radiohead on SNL?

Radiohead to play ‘historic’ one-hour episode of ‘The Colbert Report,’ two shows at NYC’s Roseland

Review: Radiohead, The King of Limbs