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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least one single featuring a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into mature Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, among them loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – based on 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 Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the reality that every attendee appear word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.