SHORT TAKES : Rolling Stones Hit in East Berlin

EAST BERLIN —  It was only rock ‘n’ roll, but it was the first Rolling Stones concert in Eastern Europe and tens of thousands of East Germans loved it.

About 50,000 East and West Germans showed up for Monday night’s concert, scheduled on the 29th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, which crumbled last November along with the police state behind it.

Lead singer Mick Jagger paced the fabled British rock group through a 2 1/2-hour performance at an East Berlin race track.

The 28-year-old group’s appearance was made possible by the 1989 demise of East Germany’s hard-line Communist regime which despised Western rock as ideological poison.

Bernd Moews, a fan who drove with his wife 90 miles from a northern town, said: “It was never possible to see them before. Tonight was a dream come true.”