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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least a track including a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

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

As the set on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; things are padded out with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to an album that only came out a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK through October 23rd.