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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least a track featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into mature mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, 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 first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; things are padded out with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific 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. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to a record that only came out a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.