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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least one single featuring a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – based on tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration 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.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mother: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be word-perfect 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 Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.