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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow certain rules – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable 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 definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them emphatically stating that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

A Superb Debut

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her initial individual concert series proves, not every song on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers end – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are back – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.