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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants 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, replete with at least a track including a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make 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 Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her initial individual concert series proves, not every song on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: 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 adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that every attendee appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester tonight and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.