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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. 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 manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track 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.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her initial individual concert series demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; 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

However, there exists additional 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 style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving 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”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a official undergarment to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers end – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that the original group are back – but the reality that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.