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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least a track featuring a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and disjointed mixture of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by including a official undergarment to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are back – but the reality that the entire audience appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to a record that only came out a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And should it occur, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK until 23 October.