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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least one single including a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – 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.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting 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 its title suggests; things are padded out with a cover 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.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba 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 features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she proposes thanking them by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the way these kind of solo careers end – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the fact that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to an album that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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