An outbreak of “Carrie fever” has hit the city and today tickets to her one-off Tamworth concert go on sale.

Music fans are walking out the door with Carrie Underwood’s new album, Blown Away. It was number one on the Sanity country charts in Tamworth last week, but she was pipped at the post by Keith Urban on the mainstream charts, sitting at number two behind her Nashville neighbour.

At the Shoppingworld Sanity outlet, store manager Jess Wilkinson thought it was a pretty handy one-two chart

combination.

“When Keith’s new greatest hits album, The Story So Far, came in today, it automatically shot to number one on the mainstream charts,” Miss Wilkinson said last Friday.

“Anyway, I don’t think Carrie would mind that Keith beat her to the top spot. After all, he’s the reason she’s coming here.

“Ever since the announcement of her Tamworth concert, we’ve sold quite a few of her new albums and also some of her back catalogue. I think people might be organising tickets and buying the album at the same time, or perhaps it’s just for Mother’s Day; I’m not sure.”

Over at the Peel St Sanity store, it was much the same story, manager Mark Graves said.

Mr Graves said he’d noticed a big increase in foot traffic through the store during the week, with Underwood fans scooping up her latest release.

“We’ve had a lot of people coming in and there’s definitely been a lot of inquiry about her new album,” he said.

Target music section sales assistant Emma Roberts was hoping for more CDs to arrive, as she had one copy of the new Underwood album left when The Leader phoned last Friday.

While Underwood album sales were slow at Big W Tamworth, across the river at Kmart sales assistant Desiree Hartin said she’d sold quite a few in the past week.

“It has been selling and I think we’re down to about six copies, so I’m hoping we get more in today,” she said last Friday.

While Underwood hadn’t made the top 30 in Kmart, Mrs Hartin said she had moved her album closer to the top 30 rack, due to the heavy advertising blitz since the announcement of her Tamworth concert at TRECC on June 29.

Despite numerous phone calls to determine how well the Tamworth concert’s pre-sale tickets had gone, The Leader was unable to do so.

Fan club members were given a 24-hour window between noon last Wednesday and noon last Thursday to purchase tickets ahead of the general public release today.

Tickets are on sale from Destination Tamworth from 9am today or online at www.visittamworth.com