(FORTUNE Magazine) – You know, most business journalists get all excited about going to Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting. After all, it is the "Woodstock of capitalism," or at least that's what Warren Buffett calls it. But I say, why truck out to the Woodstock of capitalism when you can go to Woodstock itself!!! (Or pretty close to it.) I'm talking about Ben & Jerry's annual meeting. I mean, forget about insurance, bring on the Cherry Garcia! (To be fair here, I should point out that Buffett does own Dairy Queen.) So I decided to trek up to Vermont on the last weekend of June to attend Ben & Jerry's annual excuse for a big ice cream social.

My take on it? You might want to buy some stock, just for the experience. On the other hand, you might want to buy some stock just because it seems to be on the move. That's right, BJICA has been heading north lately. I know, I know. The last time you checked in on ol' Ben and ol' Jerry, their stock was in the compost heap. And the wiseacres were having a field day. "The great social experiment has failed," they crowed. "A company can't go around hugging trees (never mind giving away 7.5% of its pretax profits to charity) and please shareholders too." There were those (and I have to count myself among this group) who thought that Ben & Jerry's shouldn't even attempt to be a public company! And with the stock down from $33 in 1992 to below $10 in 1995, who could blame us?

But now it looks as though we were wrong. Apparently, what was ailing Ben & Jerry's had nothing to do with its unique form of capitalism. No, the problem was much simpler than that. It was merely a matter of a couple of rough-edged (all right, hippie-freak!) entrepreneurs trying to run a company that had grown too big, too fast! To their credit, our boys had actually realized this a few years back, but their response was to set in motion that silly "Yo, I want to be your CEO" contest. And surprise, surprise, they came up with a CEO who couldn't tell his P&L from his Chunky Monkey.

So two years ago the company went out and hired a new CEO, Perry Odak. Remember? There was this big uproar about Odak because he had once been a consultant at Winchester Corp.! Ben & Jerry's CEO? From a gun company? It was like Greenpeace announcing it had just hired the captain of the Exxon Valdez!!!! But guess what? Odak has got Ben & Jerry's back in the butter fat. The company is booming, the stock is up to around $30, and the Ben & Jerry's faithful are now big fans.

Through all this, of course, the company has maintained its policy of charitable largesse. When I was up at the annual meeting, I got a chance to chat with Jerry about that point, among others. (First we had to jointly mourn the demise of the Brownie Bar.) "You know," Jerry started, "it's funny. We had the social mission when we were doing well. We had it when we were doing badly. And we have it now that we're doing well again. So our performance must not have anything to do with our social mission." Guy might have a point there.

But you know Wall Street. It doesn't care about that stuff. It's all "show me the money." And Ben & Jerry's did. Sales climbed 20% last year, and the company's net income was up 60%, despite an extra- large increase in the cost of goods sold (read: cream prices!). This year analysts are looking for more robust double-digit gains. No wonder the likes of Fidelity and Warburg Pincus have been recent buyers of the stock.

Oh, and the meeting. Held outside in a tent, it was a crazy swirl of theater--the formal part was performed as a musical by a quartet of employees dressed a la Cabaret--touchie-feelie testimonials by shareholders, and even a fairly grounded state-of-the-ice-cream address by Odak, who just signed a new two-year contract. All topped off by a free, bigtime outdoor concert/festival featuring Bruce Hornsby and Shawn Colvin. (BTW, did you know Shawn is the sister of FORTUNE editorial director Geoff Colvin?) And of course free ice cream for shareholders.

Speaking of shareholders, I asked bunches of them if they were happy the stock was back up. And you know what? Most of 'em didn't seem to mind one way or the other. (Actually, many didn't even know it had ever been down!) "Just happy to be a shareholder," seemed to be the general consensus, "through thick and thin." Pretty amazing, really. (Every company should be so lucky to have such a loyal shareholder base!) But after a few hours of groovin' around in that Vermont sunshine, eating ice cream, I could see their point.