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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least a track including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, 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 musical partnership with dance duo 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 disjointed mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms 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

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: 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 adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the hostility towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are back – but the reality that the entire audience seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to an album that only came out a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.