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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the public imagination. They usually follow 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 move into mature Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, including 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 merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

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, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her initial individual concert series demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, powered by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She offers Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic figure: she is, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner 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 back – but the reality that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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