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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete 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 sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

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 engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, 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 top-selling product on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not every song on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mother: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while the track 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 hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that the original group are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that was released just 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 the city of Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.