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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single 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 initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

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 dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

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 resolved, a media announcement to announce that the original group are back – but the reality that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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