The 'Total Balalaika Show', a rock concert of extraordinary proportions, was held in Helsinki in 1993. The audience numbered 80,000. This concert is analysed by reference to Bakhtin's explorations of carnival, highlighting the ambivalent nature of the event. Both the performers and the venue of the concert (the historical Senate Square in the centre of Helsinki) are characterized by the uncertainty of temporal and spatial categories. The concert is also interpreted as constituting an integral part of the new cultural situation in Finland: a situation in which this small country and its comparatively homogenous culture will increasingly have to see questions of identity pushed into the domains of reflexivity and uncertainty. The concert also provided an opportunity to negotiate the history of Finnish—Soviet relations and the problems involved in those relations.