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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 certain rules – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track including a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

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

As the set 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: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she is, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that the original group are reunited – but the fact that every attendee appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to a record that was released just 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 unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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