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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single featuring a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

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 definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them 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 merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended 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.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. The song 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 the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished presence: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes thanking them by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that was released just a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

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