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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, 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

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, 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 everything on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it has 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 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished presence: she declares, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee 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 Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

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