The scope of this paper is to show the ability of metric-based anisotropic mesh adaptation to accurately capture flow features on a common complex test case: a transonic compressor with variable stator vane in tandem arrangement. The metric-based anisotropic mesh adaptation framework has been already applied successfully to an isolated compressor and a film-cooled nozzle guide vane turbine. Therefore, this technology seems quite appropriate for a transonic tandem compressor configuration thanks to its ability to increase locally the accuracy of the solution. In this work, the metric-based anisotropic mesh adaptation framework is applied to the 1.5 stages of the TUDa-GLR-OpenStage transonic axial compressor involving several rows interaction. Several aspects have to be taken into account to extend mesh adaptation for such configurations. First, multi-row machine is composed of several rows which may have large domain volume variation and which involve different physics. In that context, error estimate cannot be applied as it. We propose an extension of the interpolation error estimate in order to equidistribute the error over all the rows whatever their size and the physics involved. This provides consistency in the mesh adaptation process. Second, the rotor-stator interaction is modeled with mixing plane boundary condition technique that has been first introduced by Denton et al. It allows removing the dependency of the results on the relative position between the rotor and the stator. The idea is to average quantities along the pitch direction at the outlet of the row, those averaged values are transferred to the next row. And, vice versa. Associating mesh adaptation with mixing planes requires that the position and the distribution radial discretization must be automatic and consistent with the current adapted mesh. Therefore, after each mesh adaptation, a specific radial discretization for the mixing plane is built based on the current adapted mesh size. These radial discretizations are different on either side of the mixing plane as the adapted meshes do not match on either side.