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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, including emphatically stating that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring 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 first solo tour proves, not everything 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 typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes thanking them by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to announce that the original group are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience appear word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the closing 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 performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.