Nearly four hours after the initial rumor sent thousands of exclamation-laden tweets between fans, Radiohead finally confirmed on Facebook that they would not be playing a surprise show for the Occupy Wall Street protesters at 4 p.m. in Liberty Park: "We wish the best of luck to the protesters there, but contrary to earlier rumours, we will not be appearing today at Occupy Wall Street." A few minutes later, the movement's official Twitter account surrendered the bad news to their to 22,000 followers: "Radiohead is not coming, we were hoaxed. Please accept our apologies." The thousands of fans standing wandering around downtown Manhattan looking for the show and finding the protesters, who'd long-planned a march on the New York Police Department at the same time and the labor unions showed up soon thereafter as planned.

Of course, the final confirmation that Radiohead was not playing a concert came three hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that the band's official spokesperson had denied the rumor. The New York Times, The New York Observer and well basically everyone (including The Atlantic Wire) published updates to their original reports with a full statement from Radiohead's spokesperson Laura Eldeiry. She told The Times:

“It’s definitely not going to happen,” Ms. Eldeiry said. “It’s a false rumor.” She said that the band had nothing to do with the announcement and that a show “was never planned.”

Still there's a livefeed if you're hoping the hoax is actually a hoax. So far, it just looks like a very crowded protest.

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Adam Clark Estes