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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. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least a track featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path 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 known for undertaking, among them 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 handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair Confidence Man – but nevertheless, 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 deeply odd, jarring and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her initial individual concert series proves, not every song 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 standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers end – the hostility towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are back – but the reality that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that was released just a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

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