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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least one single featuring a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – 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 former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, among them emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership 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 the norm.

A Superb Debut

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not every song on her debut 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 standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; 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. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she announces at one point, “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 way such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee appear word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a month ago makes you wonder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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