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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least one single including a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – judging by tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create 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 melange of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set 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 extremely memorable, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with verses that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: she declares, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to an album that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.