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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single featuring a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to 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’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, among them emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo 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 the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and disjointed melange of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her debut 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 exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it features a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished figure: she declares, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests thanking them by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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