Actors play out the crucifixion of Christ during the Buhing Kalbaryo in Barangay Guadalupe last Good Friday

The Rolling Stones rocked Havana on Friday at the most lavish concert ever in communist Cuba, where such music was once banned.

Tens of thousands of fans crammed into the Ciudad Deportiva sports complex to hear the British superstars, playing on an 80-meter stage flanked by 10 giant video screens.

Stones frontman Mick Jagger kicked off the show at 8:35 p.m. with “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” followed by “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll.”

Thousands packed the surrounding streets near the city center, while neighborhood residents piled onto rooftops to take in the scene and the music.

With no charge for entry, Cuban state media estimated that as many as 500,000 people could gather.

Many said the event showed Cuba was finally coming out of the cold after decades of ideological and economic isolation.

“I think I’m going to cry,” said Miguel Garcia, 62. “This concert is going to be the key to the door closing us in. The Rolling Stones are going to open it so that Cuba has more choices of rock bands, especially from the era we were unable to participate in.”

Momentous week

Jagger, 72, Keith Richards, 72, Charlie Watts, 74, and Ronnie Wood, 68, flew in late Thursday, arriving just two days after a political superstar, US President Barack Obama, ended his historic visit aimed at overcoming more than half a century of US-Cuban hostility.

The twin events added up to a tumultuous week for Cuba, which has been run by Fidel Castro and now his brother Raul at the head of the Communist Party ever since their guerrilla army drove out a US-backed regime in 1959.

Between the 1960s and 1990s, rock ‘n roll was discouraged to varying degrees, leading during the most repressive years to clandestine listening sessions and an underground trade in smuggled recordings.

Eddie Escobar, 45, remembers secretly searching for US commercial radio frequencies so that he could hear the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and the like.

“Rock music, I hope, will open everything else — politics, the economy, the Internet. We’re 20 years behind absolutely everything,” Escobar said.

Biggest show ever

With no tickets on sale, it was impossible to confirm local and music industry media estimates that between half a million and a million people would come.

What was sure was that the Stones staged the most grandiose show ever staged in Cuba, where no other comparable rock group has come to play — put off by a lack of infrastructure and Cubans’ lack of spending power.

Organizers told Billboard that the high-tech production meant importing gear in 61 sea containers and a packed Boeing 747.

As nearly everywhere else in Cuba, there was no Wi-Fi signal at the sports complex, and as the crowds grew cellphones became unreliable.

The band called on fans via Twitter to vote for one of four songs to be included on the playlist. But few in Cuba, where Internet is not widely available, have access to Twitter.