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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture 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 cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo 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.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and disjointed mixture 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 first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her first full-length release 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, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation 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. Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished presence: she declares, she announces at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that the original group are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to a record that was released just a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.